Midnight
by Feral Phoenix
Summary: [AU] Dolk Soljashy has endured enough as a cop that he's begun to consider giving up his job. However, a series of bloody, vengeful attacks have postponed his retirement. And with an innocent's life in the balance, he doesn't have a choice in the matter.
1. Prologue

Midnight

DISCLAIMER: I don't own FF:U, nor the many characters and thingies borrowed from it for fanfic purposes. The city of Lucretia, however, is all mine. Don't sue plz kthx; don't steal or I'll send my muses after you.

**Warning! **This fanfic contains explicit content and mature themes, among them graphic sexual violence, language, homosexuality, incest, and all the other wonderful stuff I seem to have become known for. Read at your own risk.

:Prologue:

He'd picked up a stubborn one this time.

Unlike the others, this one didn't just go limp with fear once he'd been caught from behind and pulled deep into the closest dark space. He hadn't tried to cry out or begged for mercy. He'd put up a vicious struggle, hopeless as that might have been, and it had taken a few moments to overpower him. Despite the disadvantage he suffered—he was shorter and lighter than his assailant, and in unfamiliar territory—he had refused to go down without a fight.

After so many weaklings, he _relished _a challenge.

This pert young outsider had substance. Only once he'd been smashed three times against the hard concrete of the alley wall had his struggles begun to subside enough for his attacker to pin him down to the cold ground and viciously but methodically rip at his clothing.

Ironically, it seemed as though it was only _then _that the young man had realized what the intent of this attack was. Weakened though he was by what had to be a concussion by now, he continued to shove, scratch, and pinch, looking for weak spots, twisting his body to make the man's job that much harder.

And though he continued to struggle, his attacker knew his efforts were futile, and laughed.

"Damn you," the young man seethed, his eyes flashing crimson in the darkness.

Hatred, fury, frustrated impotence. But not enough _fear, _not yet.

Maybe _pain _would help.

He leaned down, put his lips almost to the boy's ear. "You're a pretty thing," he breathed, pressing their bodies together. "But you need to learn _obedience."_

He ran his fingers up and down his captive's sides as he did so, tracing spirals around the tender dusky skin of one nipple. Pressure, without any application of his nails—just enough to show that he had the strength to snap each of this young man's fragile bones if he so desired.

Twisting desperately, the young man wheeled about for anything he could use as a weapon.

Once again, his captor laughed.

This one's refusal to give up wasn't just refreshing… seeing the slowly mounting panic in those wide ruby-red eyes was arousing. He set his lips to that slender white throat and nibbled idly down to the suddenly heaving chest.

He bit down hard enough to taste blood; his victim jerked in shock with a short, pained cry.

Lust surged through his body. _Yes. _He wanted to feel that spike of pain and terror from this boy again.

"You aren't going to get away with this," the boy said through gritted teeth, still trying to struggle out of reach. "They'll find you—they'll make you pay—"

On the street outside the alley, a car flashed by; the brief glare of headlights illuminated the black design inscribed on the young man's upper right arm.

Leaning in again, he whispered into the boy's ear. "No matter what you think, your precious Knights can't do a single damn thing."

"You—"

But whatever the boy was planning to call him was lost in the scream that tore from the depths of his chest as the man took advantage of his distraction to prize his legs apart and force into him.

He felt the tear and realized that though this boy seemed no stranger to sex or fighting, mere seconds ago there had still been a part of him as pure and virginal as newly-fallen snow.

Arching back, he let a dark grin spread across his face as he felt the blood starting to flow across the boy's thighs to trace dark lines across his hips. He had preyed upon many, but the fear and pain of virgins was more exquisite than any other.

Between the violent thrusts that slammed him against the ground, the boy continued to lash out frantically. He was breathing hard, nearly hyperventilating, and apparently in so much pain that he couldn't help the cascade of tears across his panic-flushed face. And with every wild strike he attempted to land came a half-sobbed cry of _"No"_.

But there was nothing he could do.

Climax came in one blaze of entirely mindless pleasure, then went; still, the man did not let his victim up, keeping him trapped beneath his greater weight. The boy was still gasping for breath, his chest heaving with bitter sobs. Any other man would have thought him broken.

But he had seen the tattoo on the boy's arm, and so was prepared for the frantic slash of nails that had aimed to scratch at his eyes. He calmly caught the young man's wrist, then began to squeeze it.

The boy went white and tried to pull away, to no avail. There was a crunch of bone, and a cry of pain, and finally the young outsider lay mostly still, glaring up at his attacker with a wild and wary hatred as he clutched his shattered wrist.

"Damn you," he hissed.

No, not broken quite yet. There was still work to be done with this one.

Fortunately, he had some experience with this boy's rare and fragmented race.

Still sitting almost complacently on the young man's heaving, sweat-slathered body, he reached out and gripped one of the three dark horns protruding from his forehead.

Just like that, the boy froze completely, his eyes going wide.

"…No…" he whispered, his voice suddenly very small in comparison to the hate and fury that had swelled it even during the rape.

The man smiled, tightened his grip, and began to exert force, pushing oh-so-carefully as if to bend the heavy bone back, a feat which both of them knew he could easily accomplish.

"Please… please, don't…" the boy begged, his eyes wide with the terror that his attacker had been so insistently seeking all this time.

The man's smile grew.

He pushed harder.

There was a sound like ice shattering as one thin crack spread all up and down the length of the spike; the boy let out a keening wail of pain that sent the tightening of desire crawling over the man's loins.

As the boy trembled violently beneath him, his breath hitching with fearful sobs, the man leaned in.

"Now, there isn't going to be any more of _that, _is there?" he asked with a cold grin.

He didn't wait for an answer before he began the slow and brutal torture again.

---

In a city where night never seems to end, darkness becomes a refuge.

In a place where noontime is marked by the hazing of the twilight skies into a shade that is almost, _almost _blue, the sun is a nearly-dead memory.

In a city like Lucretia, hope is so tremulous that many are uncertain of its survival.

This is a place where many people still believe somewhere in their hearts that their lives could end at any moment despite the passage of four years since the world ripped open.

There are those here who fight as they have always fought to keep the peace.

But in a city like Lucretia, chaos still holds sway.

And secrets never sleep.

_And secrets never sleep._

:TBC:


	2. City of Darkness

Midnight

See disclaimer in the Prologue

Dolk Soljashy slipped the fat, copiously paper-clipped manila folder into the filing cabinet marked "problem cases", slammed the drawer shut decisively, then slipped off his glasses and massaged his temples with a sigh. It had been another long, long day, and he was more than glad it was finally five minutes from over. At this going rate, he would barely have the time to make himself something simple and microwaveable before he succumbed to fatigue and rolled into bed at home.

Slipping the glasses back on and pushing them higher on his nose, he flipped his hair out of his face and sighed again. Work was so _insane _these days. (It had always been and likely always would be insane, but Dolk was prepared to swear that it had been getting crazier by the hour.) Still, he supposed that this was what he got for ever having acquired the crazy idea of becoming a cop in a city like this one. He should've just up and quit after That Incident, like so many of his coworkers had.

Then again, _someone _had to get the bad guys.

Even if "getting the bad guys" kept getting harder and harder these days, since people were getting a little smarter about how they committed crimes. Still, Dolk supposed that it just made the final capture of each perp sweeter now that criminals were so scrupulous about covering their tracks. That had been the appeal of this insane job in the first place, and frankly it was one of the only things keeping him on.

Still, at least he would finally be able to go home and get some real _sleep _now.

Footsteps made Dolk look up; it was his longtime partner and close friend, Lisa Pacifist. Her dark brown eyes were troubled as she approached; he noticed that she was toying with the hem of her vivid orange waistcoat, and that her steps were dragging.

As Lisa came to a stop, Dolk held up a hand. "This had better be good, because if I get another stupid complaint to sort out today, I swear I'm going to scream."

Lisa shook her head, snapping her black ponytail back and forth and making blue light play across her hair. "Believe me, I know how you feel—Kaze and the kids are waiting for me at home—but this is serious. …There's been another one."

"Shit!" Dolk sat up, his expression sobering as he snapped to attention. "Tell me."

Lisa sighed. "The victim was visiting Lucretia with his younger brother, or so I've heard. Somewhere between one or two hours ago, he was pulled into an alley barely a street away from this station, beaten, and raped. The brother was the one that found him—called an ambulance, and the hospital contacted us."

"It matches the same M.O. as the others?"

Lisa hesitated, then nodded. "Tortured within inches of death, but not _quite _enough to kill him. The doctors ran a rape kit as soon as they had him stabilized. The report said that there was a lot of blood, but that they still found spermicides in the rectum and down the victim's throat. Other injuries include broken wrists, various bone fractures, multiple lacerations, a badly bruised throat, and bite marks on the chest." She grimaced. "They're running the saliva sample, but that could take weeks. And a fractured horn—he's Mystarian."

Dolk made a face. "Whoever he is, he's a long way from home. How bad is that fracture?"

"Only a crack," Lisa replied. "But according to doctors it was a near thing."

Dolk swung his chair back around, placed his elbows on his desk, and rested his face in his hands. "God. Give me a name."

"Kiri Madoushi, nineteen years of age." There was a long pause as Lisa watched Dolk running his hands through his hair frustratedly. "No family in this city, and no contacts listed in his papers. His little brother's borderline hysterical, and you can't really blame him."

"Go on," Dolk said into his hands, his voice flat.

"It may be a while before the victim wakes up," Lisa told him. "Even so, we may not be able to get much out of him once he does. But the officers on call did find something interesting at the crime scene." She held out a photograph, an old-fashioned instant Polaroid. Dolk took it, stared at it, then frowned.

"Well, what the hell is this supposed to mean?" he asked, pointing.

Lisa shook her head. "I'm not sure. But at least one thing's clear—this proves your theory that the perp has some kind of vendetta against these people. 'Secrets never sleep' certainly does make this seem like a vengeance crime."

Dolk thought to himself that it could possibly be a trick, but the evidence so far was overwhelming. "So what's this Mystarian's connection?"

"Dolk, it's even worse than the other six. When the doctors got him cleaned up, the first thing they noticed was the black tattoo on his upper right arm."

As Lisa's words sunk in, Dolk looked up at her in despair. "God help us, the bastard's finally started going after the Knights themselves…"

---

Dolk swept from one brightly-lit patch of sidewalk to the next, scowling at the way the streetlights sent bright flares into bloom along the lenses of his glasses. At this hour, few other people were outside, and those who were seemed intimidated by his brisk stride and grim countenance.

Well, no wonder—Dolk was in a _really _bad mood. He was tired, no one would be waiting for him when he actually _did _get home, and despite the way his body ached for rest, he still had responsibilities to take care of. He'd told Lisa that he'd handle this alone, mainly because she _did _have a husband who would wonder where she was getting to as well as two sleepy kids who would want to see their mother before they had to go to bed. But he would've liked companionship from at least one person on the force for this little trip.

God, he'd always _hated _this part of the job. And it never, ever got easier, not through all the years. It was terrible of him, he knew, but in a way he preferred to have the _dead _victims rather than the living because of it. At least once you were dead, he'd often reasoned, your suffering was good and over. If you survived an attack like the one he'd just received Lisa's report on, the trauma was only beginning. Many police officers, he knew well, could be anything but kind when interrogating a victim, and then there were the memories. Survivors of sexual abuse sometimes never recovered from the shock, falling into depressions or becoming so desensitized to the whole affair that they turned to prostitution for a kind of fulfillment. If he could help it, this wouldn't go the way of so many others, but there was no way he could be certain of all that.

At the street corner, Dolk paused and glanced at his reflection on the cold slate mirrors of the nearby building's outermost windows. He needed to get to sleep. His normally neatly combed hair was tousled, with the long tuft that usually hung into the right side of his face entirely beyond control; its gunmetal gray was lusterless and completely lacked body. His thick-framed rectangular glasses were slipping down his nose _again _(he pushed them up frustratedly) and his dark hazel eyes were dull, shadowed by livid purple raccoon eyes. Despite his weariness, his black suit hadn't become mussed over the long and stressful day (though his wine-colored tie was a bit crooked—scowling, Dolk fixed it one-handedly), for which he was grateful. In the low light of the streetlamps, the metal of his briefcase glowed silver. Dolk allowed himself a lopsided smile. He might not carry a gun like most of his other coworkers, but that was because this briefcase contained all the weaponry he would ever need—tight, neat stacks of painstakingly prepared ofuda specified to any situation he might encounter, their purposes varying from banishment to elemental attacks to the evocation of minor spirits.

He knew he didn't look particularly coplike at the moment, but he didn't care. Right now, it was probably better that he looked exactly as tired as he felt. He wanted to appear everything but brusque and professional when he had to confront someone in as dubious a mental condition as this new victim's brother.

Dolk sighed, then turned and continued to walk towards the hospital.

The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he'd be able to get some sleep.

…He hoped.

---

The clerk on duty in the waiting room smiled as soon as Dolk walked in. "Hello, Detective," she called. "What can I do for you tonight?"

"I'm looking for Kiri Madoushi's room," Dolk replied. "I figured I'd better talk to his brother before I turn in for the night."

The clerk grimaced. "Be gentle with him," she warned. "He's a fragile one. I don't think he'd be able to stand much questioning for a few more days."

"I'm aware of that. I'm not in the state to be _doing _any questioning at this insane hour." Dolk sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I just thought he might like to know that we're trying to figure out who's behind all this."

The clerk gave him a _look, _then shook her head. "Go on back. Take a right, then a left. Madoushi's room is the first one in that hall—you can't miss it." Knowing he would get little more out of her than continued reproaches, Dolk went.

_I really, really hate my job. Now if I'd just taken the chance to quit while the quitting was good…_

Finding the room that the clerk had indicated, Dolk rapped gently on the partially-opened door, then let himself in, looking around.

Kiri Madoushi—it had to be him—lay unconscious on the soft white mattress of the hospital bed, connected by what had to be electrode cords to a heart monitor, a translucent oxygen mask covering the lower half of his face. Only Dolk's training as a police officer kept him from wincing at the nineteen-year-old Mystarian's injuries—soft purple bruises in the shape of handprints encircled his throat and splotched along his collarbone and left cheek; blood-spattered circles of gauze and tape encircled what seemed to be various lacerations on his arms and what part of his bare chest wasn't covered by the bedsheets, as well as the rightmost of his three charcoal-gray horns. That surprised Dolk a little—he knew that a Mystarian's horns served as a sixth sensory organ and that too much trauma to one or more of them could be fatal, but he'd never heard that they actually bled. Both of his wrists were bandage-wrapped with Velcro-bound braces supporting them.

Still, despite the various wounds that marred his countenance, Kiri was quite clearly a rather lovely young man. He possessed long, silky-looking hair that spread out around his face and shoulders in a crimson cascade. His skin was porcelain-pale from blood loss, and through the bluish plastic of the oxygen mask, Dolk could see that his lips were full as any woman's, though they were cracked and looked as though they'd been bitten. Possessing the smooth features of most other young Mystarians, Kiri also had soft-looking but onyx-black lashes and sharp, determined-looking brows, a hint at an inner substance that his comeliness in the helplessness of sleep would otherwise belie. And on his right shoulder, just at the start of the bicep, was the jet-black double spiral encircling the finely tapered line—the unmistakable symbol of the Knights of the Round. Every member of the Knights had that tattoo somewhere on his or her body; four years ago, during That Incident, Dolk had seen it in virtually every place imaginable.

For no two Knights had their distinguishing mark in exactly the same spot, and almost the entire order had arrived in Lucretia then.

Sitting at Kiri's bedside with his back to the door was his younger brother.

Dolk cleared his throat gently, and the young man turned slowly to look up at him.

Upon seeing the boy's face, Dolk's first thought was that if Kiri was a burning symbol of masculine loveliness, then his little brother would be a raving beauty when he reached adulthood. Soft, fluffy-looking white hair cut relatively short haloed a delicate, definitively effeminate face; those youthfully full cheeks were covered in glistening tracks, and even now those shockingly pale green eyes were heavy with tears even as they were softened by those black lashes. The expression on that face was heartbreakingly tormented, with full lips so roseate they had to have been bitten recently pulled into the desperate grimace of one trying his hardest not to cry. His shoulders were hunched delicately beneath the thin fabric of a hooded jacket whose green nearly matched that of his eyes, and his slender, white-knuckled hands—musician's hands, Dolk thought briefly—clutched at the knees of slim jeans that hugged the soft contours of his thighs.

Dolk pulled up another chair and sat down next to the young man. "My name is Dolk Soljashy," he said quietly, holding out his badge. "I'm one of the detectives assigned to this case."

Kiri's brother nodded once; the movement was little more than a frail tremor. "Kumo Makenshi," he replied in a soft tenor that shook and couldn't quite disguise the twist of tears.

Dolk pulled a face and laid a hand on the boy's shoulder; Kumo flinched reflexively. "I'm not here to ask any questions right now," he told the young man soothingly. "I wanted to see how the two of you were doing."

Kumo sighed; the fingers of his left hand slipped up to his throat, running along a band of periwinkle ribbon that encircled it tightly. "No one… no one will tell me when Niisama is going to wake up…" His voice hitched piteously on the last few words.

_Calling his brother "Niisama"… he must think the world of Kiri. This really is hard for him. _Dolk ran his thumb back and forth over the seam of Kumo's jacket. "At this point I don't think the doctors _can _know. I'm sure they'll tell you as soon as they do." He made a face. "And actually, it might be better for him to sleep now. He's been through some very difficult things tonight. I wouldn't be surprised if his doctors decided to sedate him just to _keep _him asleep until they think he's healed enough to handle it."

Kumo gave a hesitant nod; as he blinked, fresh tears spilled over his cheeks. Dolk wondered idly if all Mystarians had the ability to cry beautifully, or if there were some hidden in the rather people-shy race's fabled homeland who threw dignity to the winds and wailed violently, their faces crumpling like any other human's did. Then he firmly told his brain that if it could not stop being racist, it could shut up. "I… I know, but… but…"

Dolk sighed and awkwardly patted the young man's shoulder.

Kumo hid his face in his hands, shaking. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do without him…"

"Listen… do you have a place to stay while you're here? It's not as if visitors usually stay in the hospital most of the time, you know…"

"I don't want to go back to the hotel… I _can't." _Kumo's voice was muffled against his palms. "It just… it wouldn't feel safe, staying there alone…"

"And you don't have any relatives around here, do you?" Dolk made a face. "I suppose you _could _ask the staff for permission to stay here. But you mustn't expect too much, you understand?"

Kumo just shook his head numbly. "Who would _do _something like this?" he asked in a bitter whisper. "Why would someone want to hurt my brother? The Knights of the Round _saved _this place four years ago. Who would ever want to harm the person who saved their life?"

Dolk sighed. "Well, that's what we've been trying to find out."

Kumo peeked through his fingers at Dolk, frowning. "…Been trying…?"

"Your brother is the seventh victim in this case," Dolk told him bluntly. "The other six also have ties to the Knights. It appears that whoever's done all this has some kind of vendetta against the order."

"Then… that must be what we were called here for," Kumo said softly. His voice had nearly no inflection, but his brow furrowed as he delicately wiped his tears away. "Niisama and I were supposed to meet one of the other Knights tomorrow… to be briefed on what was happening here…"

_So the Knights are already looking for backup too, _Dolk mused. _But the perp obviously found Kiri Madoushi first. The poor bastard… I guess he just got lucky tonight, didn't he? _Then he realized, and frowned. "Wait… you're a Knight, too?"

Kumo cast his eyes down and bit his lip, but nodded. "Yes. This was… supposed to be my first major assignment… and they only let me come along because Niisama would be here, too." He rubbed his hand over his eyes. "Now what am I supposed to do…?"

Dolk rubbed Kumo's shoulder again. "Listen… our police unit has always worked with the Knights, and you can bet they'll be informed of this as soon as possible. You'll be put into contact with other Knights in a few days at the most—hell, if I can wrangle it, I'll get my partner's husband down here. He's a Knight, and he used to be a policeman too. A damn good one, at that. He'll probably be more than a little bit reluctant at being pulled back into the action—he's still dealing with the things he went through four years ago here—but he might be able to help us."

Kumo nodded. "Four years ago… of course. Niisama was there… and I came, too, but I didn't see too much of anything. Niisama and our parents kept me out of the way."

"Count yourself lucky." Dolk grimaced. "How old were you?"

"Twelve." Kumo sighed. "My entire family are Knights, so there was no one they could leave me with while they went into service."

There was a long silence broken only by the steady beep of the monitors as Dolk watched Kumo carefully. _He's just sixteen and a Knight already. God. He would've been the same age as the Hayakawa twins back then—bless their souls, wherever they are now._

"Listen…" Dolk stood up awkwardly. "I have to get home now, but I'd like you to know, once we contact the Knights on your behalf, someone will probably be able to volunteer to give you room and board. You won't have to stay in here any longer, and you'll be safe."

Kumo shook his head, another very delicate gesture that made Dolk wonder what crazy fool had decided to initiate the kid into the Knights so early. "Thank you, but no. I'll stay here…" He turned back to his brother's bedside, and took Kiri's hand in both of his own, interlacing those long pianist's fingers with his brother's bruised ones. "I don't want to leave him alone."

Dolk sighed and shrugged. "Suit yourself." He picked up his briefcase. "My partner and I will be back down here tomorrow to check on you two. Be sure to get some rest."

Kumo managed a smile. "I will."

Dolk nodded, and left the room.

He really _hated _his job.

:TBC:


	3. Fragmented

Midnight

(see disclaimer in the Prologue)

Dolk blew into his hands frustratedly and hit the doorbell a second time, fidgeting with impatience. It was five-thirty in the morning, and warm as it might get later today, he could just _feel _the first tinges of frostbite crawling maliciously up his fingers. And he wanted in that house.

He went through this _every _day, never mind that after years of the routine, Lisa should damn well be _awake _at this hour. Every day, he wondered if she would _ever _get herself moving on her own as he watched his digits freeze. And every day, he contemplated just leaving her here and going off to the station on his own.

But he never had, and likely never would. He just didn't have the heart—Lisa had been his friend since high school, and they'd been made partners as soon as she was out of criminal pathology training.

As Dolk's fidget drew dangerously close to an indignant dance, he reflected that it could be worse. She could still be living alone. Then he would've still been entrusted with the second key to her flat—Dolk was horrible with keys; he could put one down on the kitchen table and not be able to find it for weeks—and would have to get inside to forcibly haul her out of bed. If nothing else, Lisa's husband was as reliable as good clockwork and unlike Dolk's partner could be relied upon to get up and open the door.

…Get up and open the door _eventually._ Dolk hissed and reached for the doorbell again even as the big navy-blue door swung open, framing a tall, sleepy-eyed man with impressively long chestnut hair unchecked by its usual rubber band, wearing faded jeans and a button-down T-shirt that hung open to display a few inches' width of scarred chest and the contours of a tight if not showy six-pack. Those hooded, impassive cerulean eyes flicked over the scene, then their owner pushed open the glass outer door for Dolk. "Come in."

Dolk stepped into the warmth with a grateful sigh, shrugged off his coat, and stuck it on a peg in the hall before trailing Kaze Kuroki into the kitchen.

They'd been coworkers once, and were friends still. And Dolk hadn't been lying when he'd told the young Mystarian, Kumo, that Kaze had been a damned good cop—he'd been one of the best on their squad. A strong leader, an expert marksman and a Knight of the Round to top it off, Kaze had been on the front lines four years ago during That Incident, and had paid for it. Though still a Knight as far as titles went, Kaze had hung up his guns for good and alternately lived at home to take care of his and Lisa's two kids and continued to work part-time for the department as a weapons trainer for rookies.

There was only so much a man could take, Dolk knew. And after that, he called it quits. Quiet as he usually seemed, Kaze was as implacable as stone once he made up his mind, and in day-to-day life you only saw glimpses of the policeman he'd once been: The sharp, attentive gaze of his hooded eyes, the world-weary shadows beneath them, the posture that seemed casual at a first glance but was reflexively ready to respond to anything.

And the deep metal studs in his right wrist—old sockets that ran too deep to be removed without killing him, despite the fact that _that _weapon was kept under lock and key, as well as Kaze's oath that it would never, _ever _see the light of day again except to meet a threat as great as the one that had caused his self-exile from what had once been a cherished profession.

Nowadays, Kaze was a father first, and everything else second. And though no one ever told him so, between the imperative and the everything else lay the brutally tragic image of the broken cop he'd become.

"Lisa's in the shower. She'll be out soon."

Dolk just sighed and sat down at the kitchen table, looking around. He hid a smile behind his hands as he saw the number of crayon-and-pencil scribbles that decorated the refrigerator door, punctuated by a few photographs of the kids.

Kaze and Lisa's six-year-old daughter and four-year-old son were babied and fussed over by the entire department staff, from the chief of police himself right down to geeky Cid Newell (head of the technological section of the police unit), but all the affection showered on them from their parents' workplace was _nothing _compared to the adoration of their parents themselves. Lisa was a born mother; Kaze's aloof behavior and forbidding appearance belied a deep-rooted love for his children. Dolk couldn't fault him for it—his personal opinion was that those who didn't find Kasumi and Yuki to be cute needed to have their heads examined.

"So what are you doing today?" Dolk asked as Kaze fished iced tea out of the fridge.

"Sleeping, taking Kasumi to school, and dropping Yuki off at daycare. Have to visit Aura today. Nothing much else." After pouring himself a tall glass, Kaze held out the jug and shook it. "You want?"

Dolk shook his head. "No thanks. Couldn't say no to coffee, though."

Kaze just shrugged. "We're out. I should probably shop, too, but I hate supermarkets."

Dolk allowed himself a snicker. As a single man, he'd had to master the art of shopping, but despite four years of being a (mostly) stay-at-home dad, Kaze had never quite figured it out. "Anyway, I've been granted a rather left-handed reprieve from having to sort out the stupid claims people keep filing. Honestly, detectives have more important things to take care of, doesn't anybody get it?" Kaze nodded sympathetically, pulled back a chair, and sat down, pulling out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes as he put his feet up on the chair on the other side of the table. Dolk frowned as he watched the lanky brunet light up. "You know, Lisa's going to kill you if she sees you with that."

Kaze shrugged, and pointed to the label on the pack. "Light. Filtered." He paused to artfully blow out a light stream of smoke. "And I never light up around the kids."

Dolk just gave him a dubious look. Some men drank as a stress valve; others fought or exercised or bought therapists as wailing walls. Kaze smoked. Around That Incident and the months afterward, Kaze had been burning through two to three packs a day, unfiltered, and in addition had been narrowly dodging serious alcohol issues when Lisa had finally put her foot down. And from then on, to Dolk's knowledge, Kaze had stayed clean. This was the first time in a long while that Dolk had seen Kaze's old habits resurfacing.

Wanting to ask Kaze what was wrong and knowing that he wouldn't get any answer if he did, Dolk sighed and returned to his intended topic. "Anyway, today I'll be working on the damn serial-rape case all day, so I won't have to bother with the whiny people."

Kaze, about to take another drag, frowned and stared intently at Dolk. "Lisa told me last night there was another victim."

Dolk grimaced. "Yeah. Number seven's name is Kiri Madoushi. Mystarian. Just nineteen, the poor kid. No contact information in his papers, but he's got a baby brother sitting bedside vigil. To my knowledge, he's still hospitalized, kept under with liberal use of sedatives. Knight."

Kaze swore, turned back to his cigarette, then continued to scowl. "Wait. Madoushi. Red hair? Just feminine enough for you to notice he's good-looking? Knight's tattoo here?" He tapped his upper right arm. Seeing Dolk's nod, Kaze shook his head. "I remember him. He was here four years ago, still a kid, and so green you could still smell the ink on that tattoo. Strong, though. Damn shame he had to end up like this."

Dolk nodded. "Physically, he'll be alright eventually. Mentally, we don't know. Personally, I feel sorry for the brother. Says he's a Knight too, but he's almost painfully naïve, and _really _torn up about all this. He's the same age the Hayakawa twins are, and every bit as vulnerable as they ever were back then."

Kaze was silent, stubbing out his cigarette on a coaster, then taking a long drink of his tea. When he finally spoke, his eyes were hard with hate. "Have you looked at Kontonkawa?"

Dolk grimaced. "I know, this is exactly the kind of thing he'd pull, but at the same time, he's been cooling his heels in jail all these years with limited contact privileges."

"Then look at the sister."

Dolk just shook his head. "I agree that she'd do this if she could, just to get back at the Knights, but she's lacking a few vital pieces of equipment. Pretty hard to rape a boy so hard he bleeds without a dick."

"Could've done it with something else," Kaze said darkly.

"We found spermicides," Dolk pointed out. "Though I'd love to nail the other Kontonkawa, there's no way she can be the perp."

Kaze just scowled into his tea. "Bet it has something to do with them, though."

"I wouldn't be surprised."

The sound of footsteps made both men turn as a very sleepy-eyed Lisa meandered into the room, pulling at her tie with one hand and covering a silent yawn with the other. "Good morning. Tell me we've got coffee."

"Out," Kaze replied.

Lisa groaned; instead of choosing her own seat, she collapsed into Kaze's lap and rested her head on his shoulder. "Why is the coffee _always _gone?"

Dolk shook his head. "You know we've got some down at the station."

"But I'm so _sick _of that crappy second-rate stuff," Lisa complained.

Dolk sighed. "Well, you're gonna have to drink it this morning at least. Cid called me at the most ungodly hour this morning, and he said forensics got a sample of the spray paint the perp used, and did a rush job on chemical analysis. He's going to be staying up just long enough to hand us the results, then I think Miles and the others are going to kick him out."

Lisa yawned again, and nodded. "I guess… Cid has been doing too many all-nighters these days."

Kaze shrugged one shoulder. "In a case like yours, the entire station does what it can." And he reached for his pack of cigarettes again.

Lisa noticed, and slapped his hand, visibly trying to piece together a coherent stern face. _"No._ You already had one this morning. And don't you give me that pathetic face," she scolded. "Or I'm going to have to take these with me to work."

"You know I have to go see Aura today…"

"That excuse isn't going to work on me anymore," Lisa told him, and pocketed the cigarettes despite Kaze's whine of protest. Dolk covered a smile. "Especially not now that she's been making real improvement."

"You can't call it 'improvement' when even after four years, she hasn't been let out of that _place _even once," Kaze snapped, his eyes dark and angry.

"Oh, hush," Lisa scolded. "She's talking, and better, she's _coherent._ If you consider her state after That Incident, that's an incredible victory. And besides, I need to get to work now, so I can't just sit and listen to your negativity, much as I love you. If we don't, Cid may very well wind up collapsing again, and then Miles will have all our heads. Dolk?"

"Yes, I think we'd better go," Dolk agreed. Whereas before he'd been fighting to control the urge to laugh, reference to Aura was always enough to sober him. "The others are waiting for us. We'll call to tell you how things are going later, alright, Kaze?"

Kaze just sighed exasperatedly and waved a hand. "Go on. I'll take care of the kids."

Lisa stood up, then leaned over to embrace her spouse. "Go out and do things today," she urged. "Yes, even the shopping. It's good world experience for you." Kissing Kaze on each cheek, she smiled and tousled his hair. "And make sure you give Kasumi enough vegetables for lunch."

"Yes'm," he said dryly. "Go on, now."

Dolk and Lisa waved, then headed outside to get down to work.

---

"It took you two long enough," Miles said with a scowl as the two of them came into the station. And instead of waiting to listen to any excuses they might have, she grabbed each of them by the shoulder and dragged them into the office, where the rest of their comrades were waiting.

Dolk looked around for a few moments until he located Cid, then coughed to cover a laugh. The dark-skinned blonde was heavy-eyed and surgically attached to his mug of coffee, though he pulled a face every time he took a drink. Miles had definitely been right when she'd called him after Cid had to hurry up and come in—the young man looked as sleep-deprived as any insomniac, and judging from the size of his raccoon eyes, he was approximately fifteen minutes or so from going face-first into his desk. When you worked with a person for enough years, you just noticed the little things like that, and everyone at the station knew just how devoted Cid Newell was to his job. He was the head of tech support in their police division, put in charge of both Forensics and Internet Crimes, and always did what he could to help everyone else.

Miles sighed, stomped over to Cid's desk, and poked him in the shoulder, running her free hand through her short, wild purple hair. "Okay, genius, time to wake up. You can take a break as soon as you're done."

Cid groaned, but nodded and made a visible attempt to straighten up in his chair. "Agh… yeah, yeah, you're right. Okay. Forensics just handed me the report not long ago—they've finished their chemical analysis on the spray paint sample we took last night at the scene. When we checked, we found trace elements of Elenium mixed in with the other chemicals and minerals used in the paint, which made getting a fix on the brand pretty easy. Only the Expression brand of spray paint uses Elenium as a preservative due to the costs."

"Well, how is that going to help us?" Dolk asked, frowning.

"There are only about three stores in all of Lucretia that sell Expression spray paint," Cid reminded him. "Which narrows down the number of security tapes we have to subpoena considerably."

"The perp didn't necessarily buy any spray paint, though," Lisa pointed out. "He could've stolen it from someone else. Enough people buy it that it wouldn't be hard, especially not if he returned it afterwards, before the owner could've noticed. I actually bought a can just this week for a school project of Kasumi's, and I know _I _probably wouldn't have realized if it went AWOL for an hour or two."

"Let's just start with what we can do," Cid told her with a groan.

"But we don't even have a sketch or description," Dolk protested. "So how will the security tapes help?"

"None of the previous six victims saw the assailant, but who knows? When Madoushi wakes up, he might have something for us," Miles said. "And if he does, we might find a match if we already have those tapes."

"That's two 'ifs' too many for me, but then again, I don't see what choice we've got. All right, I'll go pass it by Knave later," Dolk agreed with a sigh.

"Gaeus is already down there," Miles informed him with a smirk. "I briefed him as soon as he got in."

"Sneaky," Dolk commented with a shake of his head but no real malice. When Miles wanted something to get done, she usually made sure it got done. And her partner, the tall, muscular, rather dignified kinokojin Gaeus Fungus, was usually quite happy to help her with it. The two of them had worked together ever since That Incident, when Gaeus' old partner had been killed on duty and Cid had been transferred to tech support, and it tickled Dolk that they were such a good team—if only because you could never let your guard down around either of them. Miles had a reputation for resorting to slightly underhanded means to get her way.

And Gaeus… well, despite all appearances and his usually straightforward manner, he'd been one of their top agents during That Incident, and had worked undercover to give the police and the Knights a leg up on the Kontonkawas' activities even though he easily could've been killed in one of their schemes. Even now, Dolk didn't like thinking about what would've happened if either Kontonkawa or one of their lackeys had decided to ask one of the policemen or Knights they'd captured about Gaeus' position during interrogations. Those people had a reputation for getting _whatever _they wanted through their questioning, and even the most disciplined and hardened of fighters eventually crumbled or went completely insane during the torture. Just look at Aura…

Dolk engaged the impenetrable mind block, refusing to let himself go down that well-trodden road of unnecessary guilt, angst, and depression for the millionth time. After four years, you'd think a man would acquire sense enough not to chase what-ifs and could-have-beens. There was the way things were, and that was all.

But all the same, Dolk made a mental note to ask Kaze how she was doing. If Lisa had been right and she really was starting to make progress… well, that alone was cause for celebration here at the station.

Lisa sighed, derailing Dolk's train of thought. "Anyway, if we _are _going to go ask for the security tapes, we'd better have the paperwork ready, and that in itself is going to take half the day. Dolk, we'd better get started or this isn't going to get done in time."

Dolk groaned and headslumped. "…whatever…"

"Don't start sounding like Kaze," Miles drawled. "Look, the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get out on the street. We'll split up the stores we hit—we can talk about that once I'm back. I need to take _this _idiot home and make him sleep," she said pointedly, and poked Cid again. "You can at least stay awake long enough to ride home, _right?"_

Cid groaned unconvincingly.

Miles shook her head in appeal to Dolk and Lisa, who just shrugged. "Well, while I'm out, I have a couple of Krispy Kreme and Starbucks coupons burning a hole in my wallet, so I'll go get us all some sustenance too. Sound good?"

"You better not be kidding," Dolk informed her. "We want frappucino and chocolate."

"As soon as humanly possible," Lisa put in.

"Do not tempt me to make cops and doughnuts jokes," Miles warned, wagging a finger at them. "You'll get your treats _if _and only if you're good little kids while I'm away." And, grabbing Cid by the ear, she was off.

"I think she just does this stuff to drive us insane," Dolk said to Lisa after Miles closed the door.

"Don't even _start," _Lisa warned him. "I want my frappucino." And she shoved files into his open hands. "Let's get started before I pull a Cid and take a nose dive into my desk."

Dolk just shook his head and obeyed.

---

The two of them and Miles had been at paperwork, doughnuts, and coffee for roughly six or seven hours (Gaeus was off on lunch break) and were almost done when the head of their division, Knave, burst into the room.

"Hello, sir," they chorused dryly.

"And before you ask, we're _almost _done, so you can stop fidgeting about it now," Miles added, signing a possible damages form with a flourish.

"Will you be _quiet?" _Knave demanded angrily. "This is serious!"

"We really _are _almost done, sir," Lisa said meekly, holding up the two forms she had yet to fill out.

"That is _not _what I meant—something's come up."

Instantly, Dolk stood, adrenaline racing. "You can't mean—there's been another attack!"

"No…" Knave sighed. "But this could change the investigation from here, all the same. It's victim number seven, Kiri Madoushi—he's awake."

(TBC)


	4. The Forsaken

Midnight

(see disclaimer in the Prologue)

"He's _what?" _Dolk stood up, staring at his superior incredulously. "Awake? This _soon?"_

"I thought you said they were going to keep him sedated," Lisa said uncertainly, glancing at Dolk.

"Whatever the case, we need someone sent down there immediately," Knave told them, scowling. "We need a statement, and his consent to try to identify suspects on those security tapes."

"Will he even be in the condition to answer any of our questions?" Miles asked, raising one eyebrow as she ran a hand through her hair. "You know what this guy does to his targets. And Knight or not, this Madoushi _is _still a kid…"

"We cannot afford to wait," Knave said, cutting her off. "Every day we waste in paperwork is another day we leave the monster we're chasing on the streets. Enough people have suffered already. Dolk, Lisa—you two head down there immediately. Miles, finish up the paperwork."

"Why just _me?" _Miles whined.

"You've already been down there, so that should reassure the brother at least," Knave went on, completely ignoring Miles. "Besides, it's probably better to have a light touch at the moment. If we let our people get too insistent, we could estrange the person who might be our only witness."

"Got it," Dolk said with a sigh. Leaving Miles sulking at the desk, he headed out with Lisa into the twilit haze that served as Lucretia's midday.

"Do you really think we'll be able to get much out of someone in that boy's state so soon after he wakes up?" Lisa asked softly as they walked.

"I have no idea, but Knave's right that we'll just have to take the chance," Dolk replied. "Madoushi _is _a Knight, and he was here at That Incident. Hopefully, he's made of stronger stuff than the others."

The two of them continued towards the hospital in relative silence, listening to snatches of conversation from other pedestrians as they went.

---

The clerk at the front desk was _not _happy about having to let the police in, but she let them in regardless. Everyone who knew about what was happening knew just what was at stake, after all.

When Dolk and Lisa got to their victim's room, they were able to see that Kiri was indeed awake—he was sitting propped against the pillows of the hospital bed with a look of bleak exhaustion on his face, and his younger brother was sitting next to him. They seemed to be conversing in low voices.

As before, Dolk knocked on the doorframe before he walked in. Kumo jumped a little, but relaxed when he saw that it was someone he'd met, and stood.

"You're… the detective I met before," he said a little anxiously.

Dolk nodded. "I'm sorry to bother you two now, so soon after your brother woke, but we need to talk to him regarding what happened. We want to get to the bottom of all this as soon as possible, before anyone else gets hurt."

"…" Kiri Madoushi sat up a little, looking at Dolk and Lisa through tired, defeated eyes. "…You're the police? Nice of you to show."

Dolk made himself ignore the acid sarcasm in the boy's voice, knowing that he probably couldn't help being a bit snarky after what he'd just survived. "I'm Dolk Soljashy; this here is my partner Lisa. We _were _hoping that we would be allowed to give you a little time to take it all in, but our district commander wants this over and done with more than anyone else but the victims."

"Agh… of course, of course." Kiri sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes, grimacing at the feel of his wrist brace against his skin. "I'm sorry. It's just… well, you know."

"No—it's alright." Lisa shook her head. "What you're feeling right now is normal. We can't blame you for being unhappy, considering everything you've been through."

Dolk motioned for Kumo to sit and pulled up a chair of his own. "Right now, all we need is a statement. Try to tell us what happened, in as much detail as you can manage. It—may be hard to talk about, but we need all the information you can give us."

Kiri heaved a long, shaky sigh and looked down, his eyes darkening. "Right. I was—I was just walking down the sidewalk, heading back to the hotel, when somebody grabbed me from… from my right side. I wasn't paying attention, and I don't think anyone else was, because nobody stopped him when he pulled me into the alley. I think he was surprised that I didn't just squeak and let him do whatever he wanted… I tried to fight back, to land a blow somewhere sensitive so I'd be able to run. It was an automatic response. I didn't even really think about—what he wanted, until he managed to hit me hard enough that I couldn't fight him pushing me down." He shivered, then hesitated. "He…" Kiri trailed off, glancing at Kumo.

Lisa caught on, and touched Kumo's shoulder. "Why don't we go get your brother some water, dear?" she asked softly. Kumo looked to Kiri, who nodded, and the two of them left the room. Lisa closed the door behind them.

"Thanks," Kiri said quietly once they were gone. "I—really don't want Kumo hearing this."

"It's alright. Go on," Dolk coaxed, pausing in scribbling Kiri's narrative in bastardized shorthand on his notepad and looking up.

"The bastard must've known I was a Knight. I told him there was no way he'd get away with what he was doing, and he taunted me about them, saying they couldn't do anything to him. Then—" Kiri shuddered again, closing his eyes and covering his face with his hands. "I—I think it must have been three, four times. After I tried to fight him, he—threatened me with breaking this" he waved his hand, indicating his fractured horn "and then I couldn't do anything against him. It—shit. He did things that I—that I—" Kiri just shook his head. "He made me—do things that—"

"You don't have to say it," Dolk told him as gently as he could, putting a hand on Kiri's shoulder. Much like Kumo had, Kiri instantly flinched away from his touch. "We had the report on your injuries from the doctors, so I can guess what happened."

"It was—so sick." Kiri was shaking viciously, visibly pale. "I wanted—wanted to at least try to resist… I don't know, scream, bite him, _something… _I was too afraid. I knew he could kill me if he wanted to. Shit." He put one of his bandaged hands to his stomach. "I feel so sick."

And he was starting to look pretty green. Dolk looked around the room, eventually spotting a small trash can in the corner by the door. As Kiri just sat there, continuing to shiver, Dolk stood up and went to go get it.

Apparently, he'd done so just in time; Kiri was only able to give him a pitiful look before he leaned across the bed and heaved, rejecting the memories of the night before with his entire body. Dolk wasn't entirely unused to the reaction, even though Kiri's was a lot worse than that of any other victim he'd had to press for details on a rape or other assault. He didn't say anything, just held an arm supportively across Kiri's shoulders and waited for him to finish, holding his hair back from his face with his other hand.

When he was done—when it seemed there was nothing left for him to vomit—Kiri shivered again and spared Dolk a brief glance through fevered eyes glazed with tears of shame. "…thank you," he managed weakly, looking away.

"It's alright." Still, he kept that supportive arm on the boy's shoulders as he helped Kiri sit up. "I think that's enough about the assault itself. What about what happened afterwards?"

"After. Right…" Another shudder ran over Kiri's body, and he narrowed his eyes at the bedcovers. "He. Ah, I was pretty out of it then, but he hit me again, to knock me out. That's—basically the last I remember before I woke up here."

"I see." Dolk finished writing, then nodded. "Did you ever get a clear look at the man who hurt you?"

"Sort of." Kiri shook his head. "It was dark already, and there wasn't much light in the alley. He was—tall, taller than me, so six foot something, I'd say? Uh—long hair. Not really muscular, but strong. Combat-trained. Has good endurance, too, or he wouldn't've been able to keep me there that long. Deep voice." He shrugged, then winced as the action jarred his injuries. "I couldn't tell you much more, but—if I see the bastard again, I'll know him." Even as he trembled from exhaustion and shame and fear, Kiri's eyes were hard and cold with hate. "I'll—have no problem identifying him if you need me to."

"That's a relief…" A bit awkwardly, Dolk patted Kiri's shoulder. "Alright, that's good for now. I might eventually come back with more questions, but for now I'll just let you rest. And—I'll ask for a nurse to clean this up."

"Thanks." Kiri wouldn't look at him, but he grimaced a little in a way that made Dolk think he'd meant to smile. _The poor kid. _You just couldn't take a look at him and the way he was trying to be so strong without it hurting.

When Dolk headed for the door and hit the buzzer near the frame that would call whoever was available down for assistance, Lisa and Kumo came back around the corner, with Kumo carrying a bottle of water and a Styrofoam cup. Dolk stepped back to let Kumo in; the boy headed to his brother's side, offering the water and then very tenderly helping Kiri drink.

"We've got the basis of a description—not enough for a sketch to be done, but he says he'll be able to ID the perp if we get him a visual. Once we've got those security tapes, we may actually have a chance."

Lisa sighed. "I'm glad of it," she said tiredly. "These children… it's horrible that whoever's behind this decided to get them involved."

Dolk rubbed his temples. "God, this has Kontonkawa written all over it. Still, Madoushi said that his assailant was taller than him, so it can't be either of them directly. I'll bet you anything this can get traced back to them somehow. The question is how we do it…"

"Did someone call for a nurse?" a nearby voice asked.

"Hey, you two are…" someone else said at the same time.

Dolk and Lisa turned. A young man wearing the blue and white of a nurse was walking towards them down the hall, and following him was a familiar woman in a dark gray waistcoat and skirt with long silver hair and blue-green eyes hard with worry. They were inhuman eyes—Dolk had often seen their pupils narrowed down to catlike slits during moments of deep concentration in the past, but even four years ago, it had been rare to see _that _look of chiseled anger on her face, the one that made her look like she could be carved from marble.

"It's been a while," Dolk said a little dryly, then turned to the nurse. "Madoushi was… sick during our interview. I managed to get him the trash basket in time, but someone still needs to clean up a little and check on him, make sure he's physically alright." The nurse nodded and headed into the room.

"Now that it's just the three of us here, why don't I skip the pleasantries and ask you directly why I had to find out at _work _that this had happened?" the woman in gray asked, folding her arms.

"They've already sent for a therapist for Madoushi?" Dolk asked in return. "That's… fast, even for your agency. I wouldn't've thought the news would get out until tomorrow at least."

"I _was _assigned to him, yes, and I _did _hear about this at work, but I won't be here professionally until tomorrow. I _would've _been here tomorrow, except that I saw the name of my new patient and knew this couldn't wait." She scowled at them. "So much for cooperation, when the police couldn't even have told me not only that our serial rapist had attacked a Knight but which one he'd gone after."

"You know these kids?"

"Of _course _I do." Anger creased with concern on the woman's face. "I've been friends with their family for a long time—and I was supposed to be in contact with them soon. They were going to stay with me while I was here."

Dolk made a face and shook his head. "I'm sorry about that. Shit, Fabula, if we'd _known _that we would've contacted you straight away. There was nothing listed in their contact information about who to call if anything happened to them."

"We heard from Kumo that they were supposed to be working on this from the Knights' end… were you going to help them, then?" Lisa ventured.

Fabula Kronos just raised her eyebrows at them, her eyes still smoldering. "Of course. Kiri is strong, but he's young, and Kumo would be in danger if he only had his brother for a supervisor. Damn police. We of the Knights _know _that we have to handle everything big in Lucretia, but we _do _expect you to _try _to watch our backs in return."

Dolk just sighed and looked awkwardly in another direction. This situation was _really _getting out of hand if they were getting bile from _Fabula, _of all people.

Not only was she a Knight, she was a _powerful _one. Instead of acting as any part of traditional armed forces, she was a civilian, and acted like one—until danger struck, anyhow. She'd worked with their police forces during That Incident, and had rallied the Knights to come to Lucretia's rescue and stop the Kontonkawas back then. She was usually a very pleasant person, which hid the fact that she was tough to the core, wouldn't take shit from anyone, and was extremely dangerous when truly angered. And she'd always been pretty sympathetic towards the troubles of the police after about half their force had quit.

"We… _are _sorry," Lisa said softly. "There's only so much we can do. I wish we could solve this case faster, but…" She just shook her head.

Fabula held up her hands to quiet her. "Now that I know how bad the situation's gotten, I'm raising the alert tonight," she said in a grave tone. "Whoever this bastard is, he has to know that he's effectively declared war by attacking a Knight. If anything like that happens here again, we're calling in the forces. Now." She set her hands on her hips and looked from Dolk to Lisa. "If you two don't mind, I'm going to head in to do what I can for those boys. Lisa, pass the word to Kaze that we're gearing up for conflict. Dolk, if you harassed Kiri too much in questioning, so help me…"

Dolk glared at her. "I know better than to push someone in his condition for too many details. I'd be more than happy to pass your complaints to Knave, though; he's the one who ordered us here."

"Do that." And Fabula brushed past them, heading into Kiri's room.

Dolk and Lisa watched as first Kiri, then Kumo noticed her approach, as Kumo hesitated for a moment and then ran to her, as she put an arm around him and a hand on Kiri's shoulder.

"I tell you, our perp's definitely got balls if he's willing to piss off people like _her," _Dolk said wryly. "Unfortunately, she's also pissed at _us _now. But what are we supposed to do, other than keep trying?"

"…………" Lisa shook her head. "At any rate, we need to swing back by the station to pick up the paperwork and get those security tapes. Hopefully, Madoushi will be able to identify someone on them and we'll be able to put an end to this before it gets any worse."

Dolk didn't answer. Hope was one thing, he'd learned, that never served anyone well in a place like this.

:TBC:


	5. Backstage Aria

Midnight

(see disclaimer in the Prologue)

"No."

"Are you _sure?" _Dolk asked again, looking down. Kiri was sitting up in bed, leaning forward and giving the small television in front of him an intense glare through haunted scarlet eyes.

"Dead sure," Kiri replied grimly. "He's not here, either. Not anywhere on any one of these tapes. I told you I'd know the bastard if I ever saw him again, and I'm not seeing him. Whoever he is, either he stole the paint you're talking about or he got somebody else to buy it for him."

Dolk sighed and massaged his temples. "Well, I suppose it would've been too easy to catch him like this. Still, thank you. You've only been up for a few days, and you were willing to put yourself through this…"

Kiri let out his short, bitter bark of a laugh. "Are you kidding me? The sooner we get this shit over with and catch the bastard, the better. _Every time _Kumo leaves this place alone, no matter where he's going, the thought that what happened to me could happen to him terrifies me. It's gotten to the point where I've had enough panic attacks that the doctors are running our errands. I never should've brought him here. This is way too dangerous for a new Knight to handle."

"You know Fabula's ready to call the forces down if anyone so much as looks at him funny," Dolk said. "And we've got a few guards stationed around this area just in case. We can't risk anything happening to your brother, especially when he's exactly the kind of kid this sick sonofabitch goes after. There've been more than enough victims here."

"I hope that's enough," Kiri said wearily, easing back against the pillows and closing his eyes. It occurred to Dolk that he seemed very frail, and wondered if he was seeing the truth of the young Mystarian's emotional state behind the veneer of forced hatred and pride.

Making a face, he reached out and placed a hand on Kiri's shoulder. "You just hang in there," he told the young Knight. "That's all you can really do now, anyway."

"…heh." Opening one eye, Kiri gave Dolk a wry smile. "Feeling sorry for me, old man? Don't. Pity's a luxury we can't afford now."

"What do you mean by 'old man'?" Dolk asked, raising an eyebrow as Kiri laughed hoarsely. Shaking his head, he hefted his briefcase, putting his right foot up to the wall so he could rest it on his leg. "Here—I've got an idea, a way we can stay in contact in case something happens or there's something you want to talk to me about." Popping the catch open, he found his stack of clean ofuda, a thin brush, and a well of solid black ink, and took them out.

"Fuujutsu?" Kiri was watching with interest. "Interesting. My mother uses those, but I've never known anyone other than her who did."

"Your mother has good taste." Dolk wrote his name on one side of the spell card in katakana with swift, sure strokes, then turned it over, waving it a little to make the ink dry faster. "How's your name written?"

"The way it sounds," Kiri replied. "Mist Madou-user. What are you doing?"

Dolk didn't answer for a moment, concentrating on writing the kanji that formed Kiri's name correctly. Once he was done, he cleaned his brush and put it away. "This is a form of minor magic," he explained, handing the ofuda to Kiri, who examined it. "Say your invocation key and hold it to your forehead, and we'll be telepathically connected. It's only good for ten uses or so, and then it'll break, so only use it if you need to talk to me right away. For anything else—" Dolk dug in his pocket, then presented a business card to the Mystarian with a flourish. "My work number's on the back."

"Thanks." Kiri set both of them on the bedside table. "I'll get back to you if I need anything."

"Alright, then—" Dolk collected the subpoenaed tapes and gave Kiri a slight bow. "You need your rest, so I'll go find out where Lisa and your brother have wandered off to."

Kiri nodded and eased back against the pillows again.

Dolk didn't have to look that far. There were chairs and even a sofa in the hall next to the corridor where Kiri's room was; Lisa had apparently led Kumo off there. When Dolk got to them, Lisa was on one end of the sofa and Kumo was sprawled across the rest, his head and shoulders in Lisa's lap and his legs folded to his body so that only his bare feet trailed off the cushions. He was apparently sleeping deeply; Lisa was stroking his hair with that motherly look on her face, smiling down at him.

"Just too tuckered out to stay awake, huh?" Dolk kept his voice low as he sat in the chair next to Lisa's end of the sofa.

She nodded. "This little one has been up a lot recently, watching over his brother. Now that we could leave Kiri to you, he couldn't keep himself up any longer." She sighed. "He's still only a child, after all…"

Dolk made a face. "Well, this asshole isn't making it any easier on any of us. We've got a negative on that ID. Madoushi swears up and down that his assailant was never on any of the footage."

"So, then, it was stolen… or, someone in league with him bought the paint for him." Lisa sighed. "Back to the drawing board again…"

"Maybe." Dolk shook his head. "I figure it's time to go pay Kontonkawa a visit, press him for details. The son of a bitch has _something _to do with this, I just _know _it."

"That's highly likely."

Both Dolk and Lisa looked up to see that Fabula was walking down the hall towards them, her long hair clipped up and a portfolio bag over her arm.

"Visiting our witness again?"

Fabula just raised her eyebrows at them in her aren't-_you-_just-a-master-of-the-obvious? way, then shifted her bag on her shoulder. "Kiri needs _therapy, _and he needs it as soon as he can get it, or else he may not be able to deal with the trauma he's been through. It definitely says something for your department that you two keep getting sent down here—at least that hopeless case of a district commander you have acknowledges that Kiri's in no state to stand rigorous questioning yet. You two care about this, a lot more than most would. Just—be gentle with these boys, as much as you can. That's all I can really ask of you."

"Fabula…"

She shook her head at them, holding up her free hand. "There's no need. I apologize for snapping at you two yesterday—I tend to let the fact that I care for these two overwhelm my usual manners sometimes."

"Ah. You don't have to apologize." Dolk shrugged awkwardly. "These two are… well, I think we all feel the same way about them."

"Well—if you're done with Kiri for now, we should get Kumo back off to their room—it's better that he sleep on his cot instead of out here."

Lisa nodded, then gently shook Kumo's shoulder. "Wake up, dear," she said softly.

"Hnn." Kumo made a face, then sat up, rubbing his eyes. "I wasn't really…" he mumbled sheepishly.

"There's no shame in getting the rest you need," Fabula chided gently, smiling at him. "You should go back to Kiri now; you know he worries. He'll want you to get some sleep, too."

"Ah… yes." Shaking his head to clear the disorientation of tiredness, Kumo stood, bowed to Dolk and Lisa, and headed down the hall, disappearing around the corner.

"While I'm standing here—" Fabula dug in her bag and held what looked like a bottle of pills out to Lisa. "These are for Kaze. He wasn't at his best when he left before; he seems to have conveniently forgotten them. I know it's difficult, but try to impress on him the fact that he needs these."

Lisa accepted them with a nod.

"Wait—what?" Dolk looked from one to the other of them. "You're treating Kaze, too? For _what?"_

"I can't say anything—patient privilege, you understand—so it's really Lisa's choice whether to tell you or not," Fabula said with a shrug.

"I suppose—to make a long story short, Kaze's been having trouble with stress, and with the memories from back then," Lisa said slowly. "You've noticed he's started smoking again. He's been having—other problems too, insomnia and such. So, he usually has a session or two with Fabula when he goes to visit Aura."

"What exactly my superiors were thinking, giving him to me, I'm not sure," Fabula commented wryly. "Especially because he only gets to see me once he's seen _her. _He hasn't forgiven me for anything, any more than he has since he found out, and in any case it's difficult for him, seeing her like that."

"Lisa, you mentioned she was getting better, though…"

"Better's a relative term for someone in Aura's condition," Fabula answered for her, sighing and closing her eyes. "I don't think she'll ever be as vibrant as she was. You can't survive what she did without being changed forever. She's harsher… colder. More afraid. And no one can blame her. But she's sane. It's more than can be said for anyone else the Kontonkawas got their hands on."

"So, then…"

"She hasn't been having as many panic attacks, and the ones she does have are a lot less severe. She's off the lithium, although she's still on plenty of other drugs. But in between the isolation and the pill cocktails, she's getting herself back under control. She'll never be the best of the best again, but—give it a few more years, and she'll be able to leave." Fabula shook her head, her eyes distant. "I understand how Kaze feels. I worry about her, and watching her like that _hurts. _But I do whatever I can. We _all_ do what we can."

"That hasn't changed," Dolk acknowledged, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips.

"No…" Fabula smiled and touched her chest. "Feelings don't change that easily."

Lisa nodded. "Shall we go and say goodbye to Kiri and Kumo, then?"

"May as well. We've got to go report to Knave and get permission to use the screws on Kontonkawa, after all." Dolk said it with a humorless smile as he stood; Lisa followed him. In silence, the three of them headed down the hall and turned the corner. And then stopped dead in front of the two-way mirror that formed the main window of Kiri's room.

Dolk stared. And stared. And _stared. _Lisa blinked and pointed at the scene before them and turned to Dolk and Fabula with a somewhat disturbed expression. Fabula just folded her arms, shook her head, and smiled.

Kumo, naked from the waist down, was sitting in Kiri's lap, straddling him, his hands on Kiri's shoulders as he rocked slightly, his eyes half-closed and glazed, his lips swollen and shaping soft cries that his audience couldn't hear through the mostly-closed door. Kiri, propped against the pillows though he was, still _injured _though he was, had one bandaged hand on Kumo's hip, bracing him, and the other around his brother's erection. As they watched, Kiri thrust hard into him, and Kumo arched up with an expression of tortured ecstasy on his face, gasping.

"That's enough, you two," Fabula said suddenly, and pushed Dolk and Lisa out of view of the window and the Mystarian brothers' lovemaking. "If you _really _need to watch something like that, there's always the Internet. Those two deserve a little privacy."

Dolk pushed his glasses up and covered his eyes. "Wait. Can't engage in conversation yet. Trying to process unnecessary information and images so that they can go behind an Impenetrable Mental Block. Ohhh boy." So far it wasn't working. Damn it. He really had _not _needed to see that.

"They're—?" Lisa asked in a squeaky tone of voice.

"They're like that, yes," Fabula replied calmly, patting her on the shoulder. "Give it a moment. You'll get used to the fact once it's had a while to terrorize your brain."

"Aren't you going to do something?" Dolk asked, pointing in the general direction of the room.

"Like…?" Fabula prompted, raising her eyebrows. Dolk would be damned if she wasn't amused by all this.

"Like _stop them?" _Dolk suggested. "What kind of therapist _are _you?"

"Family friend first, _then _therapist," Fabula corrected. _"Really. _Think first before you start judging them. Mystarian culture is different from ours—there, incest between siblings and cousins is like being homosexual here… different, but not really taboo. And this is good for them. Beyond physical comfort, it's helping Kiri regain his sexual stability—letting him remember himself, if you will. As for Kumo, not only is it letting him help Kiri instead of not being able to do anything for him, it'll put him safely out so he can get a few hours of solid sleep."

"Um… alright, then," Lisa said meekly.

"Still processing _first _batch of unnecessary information—do not need _more _TMI to sort out," Dolk protested, feeling mildly ill.

Fabula sighed in mock disgust, giving the two of them a slightly crooked smile. "Straight people," she said as though the words were a condemnation. "Almost all of you are so closed-minded it's a wonder you're able to survive day-to-day in a world where things change so drastically so quickly. Honestly. Since we don't need you two standing around like a couple of cows with your mouths hanging open like that, go off and do your jobs. There's a bad guy to catch, remember?"

_Oh yeah. _"And what are you going to do?" Dolk asked.

"I," Fabula told him matter-of-factly, "am going to wait for those two to finish up, get Kumo to bed, and start my session with Kiri. And then possibly ask for an extra Knight or two working backup while he recovers, since Kumo isn't likely to leave him."

"You're _trying _to scar us for life, aren't you…"

"Why would I ever want to do _that?" _Fabula asked with an impish expression.

---

With evil therapists and the new, all-too-vivid definition of brotherly love shifted firmly to the back burners of his mind, Dolk walked back towards the station with Lisa at his side.

"So all this and we have next to no new leads, a few wasted days, an angry-slash-traumatized kid in the hospital who by the way is sleeping with his brother, way too much information about this fact, and the therapist from hell breathing down our necks on the investigation," Dolk summarized with a sigh. "On the plus side, we can give the sort-of description of the rapist to Cid and see if it matches up with any known collaborators with the Kontonkawas. And we have an excuse to go heckle the son of a bitch."

"It's something," Lisa admitted.

"If you want to call it that," Dolk quipped.

The two of them walked the rest of the block in silence, and probably would've continued to do so, had Lisa not stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, staring across the street with cutting worry on her face.

_"Kaze?" _she said aloud.

_"What?" _Dolk looked at her, then followed her gaze.

It was unmistakably Kaze, but even from across the street, they could tell that something was wrong. He was moving like a sleepwalker, and he had a strangely deadened expression as he went, tracing the dark stone architecture of the building walls at his side with his hand in an absent gesture.

Checking first for traffic, Dolk and Lisa hurried across the street, chasing after him. "Kaze?!"

At the sound of Lisa's voice, Kaze started mid-step, then turned around, staring at them as if he didn't recognize them or where they were at all.

"…Lisa…" Kaze shook his head, then stared around, frowning. "This…"

"Are you alright?" Lisa reached out to take his hand, looking up at him through worried eyes. "Why are you all the way out here?"

"…………" Kaze put his free hand to his forehead. "…I don't remember…"

"Kaze…"

Dolk shook his head at them. "Alright. Lisa—you two had better go home. I'll handle the rest of today's work by myself. It'll probably be a while before I actually get cleared to go bother Kontonkawa, anyway."

Lisa looked like she was going to protest, but she glanced back and Kaze and apparently thought better of it. "…alright. I'll call in tomorrow if we can't make it."

"You two take care," Dolk told them. Kaze made no motion to reply, but Lisa nodded, tugging him off with her in the opposite direction.

Watching them go, Dolk sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets. These days, it was like all of them were falling apart at the seams, along with the whole city itself.

It sucked being considered the glue that was supposed to hold a crazy city like Lucretia together.

:TBC:


	6. Signal Fire

Midnight

(See disclaimer in the Prologue)

Dolk got the call from Lisa shortly after he and the others had left the police station.

"Yeah, I figured you wouldn't be showing up since you called last to say that Kaze hasn't been any better. No, it's not a problem. I've got Miles and Gaeus with me today… Oh, really? Well, we're headed down to go take our frustrations out on our friend in jail right now. Once we're done with that, we're going to go visit Madoushi again… Cid pulled up a list of people with records and connections to the Kontonkawas or just That Incident in general who might be our perp, and we're going to try again for that ID. We'll check in with Fabula, too, and keep the Knights informed…

"That's good. You just take care of Kaze and the kids for now. I'll call again to check in sometime soon."

---

"Niisama…"

Kiri gave a noncommittal groan, then stirred and opened his eyes, only remembering just in time before trying to rub his face with the back of his hand. Kumo was sitting up next to him on the hospital bed, wearing only the loose white kimono he was using as sleepwear here. It was hanging wide open, showing a generous amount of his chest as well as the subtle curves of muscle over his soft belly as he sat turned to look down at his brother. Kumo was smiling down at him through that early-morning haze, his face rosy and his hair all mussed and the easy peace that lingered after a night's lovemaking and sleep settled over his body. Kiri realized that light marks still showed in a lazy trail from the side of Kumo's throat right down past the thin obi of his kimono where he'd nibbled at his brother's sweet skin the previous night.

The sight stirred Kiri's blood strongly, and he swallowed hard, hoping that he wouldn't get too turned on first thing in the morning. If he did, he'd either have to openly ask Kumo to go off somewhere so he could take care of it himself (if he even could, in his state) or he'd have to get Kumo to take care of it for him, which was risky and not all too smart since there'd be lots of awkward questions if some doctor or nurse or, worse, one of the police happened to walk in on them.

"Hey," Kumo said sweetly. Kiri's insides turned over, and he tried not to moan in open longing.

Instead, he reached out and tugged Kumo's kimono closed. "Hnn." Then gasped and curled up as savage pain shot through his arms, then across his chest and between his legs. _"Shit—"_

"Niisama, here…" Kumo retrieved a Styrofoam cup of water and four pills of varying shapes and sizes from the bedside table. "These should help… one of the nurses left them earlier, while you were still asleep."

Kiri accepted the pills with shaking hands and put all four in his mouth, sitting up as best he could so that Kumo could help him with the water. They felt lumpy and jagged when he swallowed, and he felt for a while like they were sticking in his throat until he took a few more drinks. When the cup was almost empty, he pushed it away and coughed and lay back. "Uggh. I hate taking pills." Making a face, he rubbed the spot in his upper arm where his IV had used to be. "At least I'm off that damn morphine. I hate how fuzzy that stuff makes my head."

Kumo murmured and stroked Kiri's hair, leaning in as close as he seemed to dare without jarring any of Kiri's wounds. "Niisama, just… take it easy."

With a sigh, Kiri leaned into his brother's arms. "…Thanks. It helps that you're here." Instead of outside doing who knows what and probably attracting that sick bastard's attention. "Just… just stay with me for a while, okay? These drugs—make me sleepy. And it's easier… when I know you're with me."

Kumo lightly kissed him on the lips, then on the cheek. "…Of course I will, Niisama."

Kiri snuggled close, abandoning what pride still prickled at the motion. "I love you, Kumo."

He'd closed his eyes, but he could still hear the smile in Kumo's reply: "I love you too, Niisama. Sleep tight, now. I'll be right here."

---

Dolk folded his arms and gritted his teeth, restraining a growl of hatred, as he watched armed guards escorting their prisoner from the innards of the maximum security prison to the table bisected by wire-reinforced Plexiglas that made up the visitor's room and makeshift interrogation chamber.

Despite spending four years in solitary, Tyrant Kontonkawa looked none the worse for wear. In fact, Dolk observed with some ire, the man seemed as calm and arrogant as ever—he hadn't even lost any weight. The gray jumpsuit striped with reflective orange on the shoulders and down each leg, which bagged on every other prisoner Dolk had ever encountered in a place like this, clung closely to the man's deceptively slender frame—one that, he knew, was actually highly combat-trained. His long lilac-colored hair had gotten quite a bit longer, and hung past his hips, but not even one strand of it seemed out of place, and as Kontonkawa sat elegantly, he swept it back in a bored yet refined gesture and leaned forward against the table, resting his chin against the heel of his hand and regarding the three detectives before him with his flat doll's features arranged in a sardonic smile and his ice-blue eyes cold.

"Ah… I see we've Soljashy, the Amazon woman, and…" a mild arch of the eyebrows that had been trimmed back to near-_yanki _degrees. "…our own dear Fungus." Dolk heard Miles growl softly next to him, and on his other side, he saw Gaeus' broad shoulders go taut. "To what do we owe the… _pleasure_ of your company?" Kontonkawa said it with a sneer.

Dolk narrowed his eyes at the man. "We might not be able to trace everything directly back to you just yet, but we _know _you're up to something, damnit. And we just want you to know that we aren't going to stand idly by and let you do whatever you please with this city."

"And if I was 'up to something', as you so charmingly put it," Kontonkawa said brazenly, meeting Dolk's glare with a cold smile, "just what do you think you'd be able to do to stop me? There wasn't anything you could do before… after all."

"You got children involved last time, and you're getting them involved again," Miles snapped. "That's not the kind of thing we tolerate. If you're stupid enough to try anything, we won't even give you the benefit of a trial—we'll force you to meet justice right then and there."

Kontonkawa leaned back in his chair and looked down his nose at them all. "Hmph. So much for your beloved order, your _honor."_

"Who are _you _to speak of such things?" Gaeus burst out suddenly. "A pitiful creature such as you could never know anything of honor!"

"Guys, don't let him work on you," Dolk said softly, although his words did nothing to loosen the garrote's-wire tension strung between them all. To Kontonkawa, he warned, "Just know that we're watching you and all your little cronies very, very closely, you son of a bitch." Averting his eyes from the criminal's calculating smirk, he waved to the guards. "Lock the bastard back up."

And as the men hauled Kontonkawa back into the stone and steel bowels of the prison, Dolk wondered how it was that every time they came in here to work on this man, he wound up getting to them instead.

---

Lisa set the phone down and massaged her temples, sighing.

She hated to see any of her friends and coworkers unhappy, and she'd heard in Dolk's voice how badly Kontonkawa had managed to rattle him and the others. It wasn't fair for the events of four years ago to still have so much hold over them all—over everyone in Lucretia.

Sadly, she looked over to where her husband lay on his side of their bed, facing away from her. She still remembered every second of the terror she'd felt all those years ago, when she'd thought she was going to lose him—when she'd thought that she and her poor daughter and the baby growing inside her would be forced to face the rest of their lives alone. Kaze had been through more than enough already. And now, with the Knights of the Round under attack… it had torn every barely-healed wound open again, leaving Kaze horribly vulnerable, making him sick like he hadn't been since the weeks that had directly followed the conclusion of That Incident.

Lisa sat down next to him and watched him for a moment. He was sleeping deeply, and the shift of her weight as she lay down didn't cause him to stir. Tenderly, Lisa reached out to stroke his long hair, then traced the black lines of his Knight's mark, first running a fingertip down the straight line which ran from the nape of his neck to just below where his ribcage ended, then following the spiral back and forth over his shoulderblades. Still, he didn't wake.

Why was it that it seemed to be the fate of every Knight to suffer like this?

Sighing, Lisa leaned her forehead against Kaze's back and closed her eyes.

---

Since Lisa was still staying with Kaze, Dolk took Miles and Gaeus down to the hospital to show Kiri the results of Cid's search.

"Now, I should probably warn you—Madoushi's a bit caustic, and Kumo startles easily…" Dolk told them again as they walked.

"Yeah, yeah, we'll be good," Miles drawled, rolling her eyes. "It's safe to let us near the other kids, Mommy."

"I should _also _warn you that they're kind of sleeping together."

"I _said _it's—whoa, wait." Miles stared at Dolk in fascination. "But they're _brothers. _They're having sex? _That _kind of sleeping together?"

Dolk reminded the graphic memories to stay behind their impenetrable barrier, groaned, and nodded. "Yes to the first, yes to the second, and there _really _is only one connotation to the phrase 'sleeping together' in that kind of context."

"So our victim's already in an incestuous relationship." Miles' eyebrows were approaching the ceiling. "How'd you learn this? I mean, if they're Knights, they'd know better than to parade it in a city like this, right?"

Dolk twitched. "Lisa and I narrowly escaped walking in on them. We saw enough through the two-way mirror to get the idea, and if it weren't for Fabula, we'd've gotten a _lot _more where it came from."

Miles whistled. "Wow. Part of me—feels really sorry that you had to see something like that. And the other side… the other side actually kinda wishes you'd taken pictures so you could share."

_"Miles!"_

She shrugged and grinned. "Well, _some _of us think that watching two guys going at it is hot."

Dolk shook his head at her, then turned to look up at Gaeus. "You don't seem too bothered by this either."

Gaeus just shrugged, nonplussed. "They're Mystarian. It's not that unheard-of, with their race."

"I'm just dropping this conversation right now before you two scare me any more," Dolk decided wisely under his breath. To be fair, he was still getting over the shock of having seen Kiri and Kumo doing that, but sometimes he really considered Miles and Gaeus to be too open-minded for their own good.

That was pretty much how things stood when the three of them walked through the door.

Kiri and Kumo had been sitting next to each other talking, and both of them turned when they heard the door opening. At first Kumo made to stand but saw Dolk and remained where he was, but the next moment when Miles and Gaeus came into the room, he was up on his feet and bowing. "Um—"

"It's alright," Dolk assured him. "They're also police officers. Lisa would've come like yesterday, but her husband's ill and she feels she needs to take care of him today."

Kumo nodded, still darting shy glances towards the newcomers. "I-I can understand that. Um—it's nice to meet you, um…"

"I'm Miles, and the big guy's my partner," Miles said with an easy grin, leaning against the two-way mirror.

Gaeus stood straight and actually gave Kumo a salute, smiling one of his impressive (if somewhat imposing) smiles. "Gaeus Fungus, at your service."

Kumo nodded, and bowed again. "N-nice to meet you both."

Miles leaned further back, pushed up the rolled-up sleeves of her uniform shirt a bit further, and stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "Now, what's with all _that? _Dolk, what kind of crap have you been telling these two? We don't bite. Besides, good-cop/bad-cop is only for the bad guys."

"Even if we did—bite, that is—she's had her shots; you'd be perfectly safe," Gaeus added helpfully.

_"Guys," _Dolk groaned, resisting the urge to facepalm. However, Kiri was already giving them his hoarse bark of a laugh, and Kumo was covering what looked suspiciously like a smile with his hand.

Gaeus stepped forward then and gave Kumo's hair a brief ruffle. The sight was almost comical—because of his race, Gaeus stood taller even than Kaze, and so he dwarfed Kumo by head and shoulders, and his hand was big enough to cover Kumo's face and then some—but there was something really very touching in the way that Kumo blinked up at Gaeus, taken off-guard, as the tall man smiled down at him.

"We are doing everything in our power to prevent any more harm from befalling the two of you," he said gruffly. "Rest at ease knowing that if by our lives or deaths we can protect you, we will."

"…" Kumo stared up at Gaeus with something like awe in his eyes as that huge hand was lifted off his hair. "…Gaeus-san…"

"…does he really mean that?" Kiri asked quietly, so that only Dolk could hear him.

"Definitely," Dolk replied in an undertone. "They might not look it now, but Miles worked the streets four years ago, so she's familiar with situations like these, and Gaeus was our inside man with the enemy. Miles has seen more than enough awful things happen to kids your brother's age and younger, and Gaeus' honor is his life. They're some of our very best, and they're like me and Lisa—they'll help you with everything they have."

"…Huh." Kiri looked at Miles and Gaeus for a moment with new respect, then turned back to Dolk. "Anyway, what brings you all here today? I suppose there's something you want me to tell you, or some other thing I can do to help you along."

"Well, there's not many new leads, so I had our head of tech support pull the file of every guy who might have a grudge against the Knights who matches your basis of a profile in any way. It's not much, and we may not come up with anything, but I'd like you to look through these for us. Who knows? Your assailant might be in here."

Kiri sighed. "Paperwork. My favorite."

"You're telling me. And, hey, this is my _job."_

"Whatever." Kiri held out one hand—he had a much smaller brace on today, one that just covered the hand and wrist, but his bandages still went halfway up his forearm. "Give it."

Dolk handed over the manila folder and sat next to Kiri in the chair Kumo'd been occupying while Kiri started to flip through the copies of criminal records and Miles and Gaeus engaged Kumo in conversation.

"So you're a Knight too, huh?" Miles asked.

"Y-yes. I'm not very experienced, it's true—I've only been one for a few months—but if I must, I will fight in order to help my fellow Knights of the Round," Kumo replied hesitantly.

"Where's your Knight's mark, then?" Miles sounded curious. "We've seen your brother's, but you seem to wear pretty covering clothes, so it's hard to tell."

Interestingly enough, here Kumo let out a little squeak and went bright pink. "Th-that's…"

"Hm?" Miles waited, raising her eyebrows at him.

"I-I'd rather not…" Kumo covered his face, blushing even worse. "It's embarrassing…"

"Now, if you can't answer a simple question like that, how are you going to be able to verify your Knighthood to your own _order?" _Miles asked, sounding annoyed, almost disgusted. "Not all Knights are so open as to take your word for it that you're one of them."

"Miles…" Gaeus said in a low voice.

"Don't defend the kid. He's got to learn to speak up and defend himself," Miles retorted, waving her partner off. So saying, she crossed her arms and looked at Kumo. "Well?"

"B-but…" Kumo looked frantically towards Kiri, pleading for rescue.

Kiri gave Miles a flat glare, then shook his head and turned to Kumo with a sigh. "Tell them. You're still of an age where people'll doubt you if you can't. It's okay."

Kumo fidgeted, crimson straight up to the ears, but nodded miserably and gave a little sigh, as though steeling himself. "It's. It's, u-um." He slipped his right hand between his legs and lightly tapped the inside of his right thigh, high up in his groin. "Right here."

"Oh." Miles blinked and shifted and refolded her arms as everyone just stood there awkwardly staring at Kumo and Kumo, in turn, kept his eyes to the floor and pulled his hand away from his hidden tattoo. "…Well."

"The idea was to hide it so that we can still treat Kumo like a civilian if we have to," Kiri explained, that acid edge back in his voice as he gave Miles a resentful stare. "He's young, he's hopelessly inexperienced, and the powers that be have a penchant for tossing new Knights into sticky situations that get way over their heads almost instantly, without even stopping to see if they can swim yet. That being the case, concealing Kumo's Knighthood is the only way we can make absolutely sure he's safe. His Knight's clothes have a slit there so that you can see he's Marked, to keep it from being a problem in combat situations."

More awkward silence, then: "That… must've been a bit awkward, to have it done there," Miles said at length, giving Kumo a considering stare with an arched eyebrow.

"Not particularly." Kiri shrugged one shoulder and turned back to the profiles he was supposed to be looking through. "I was the one who did it. It's usually family or someone else close who gives a Knight his or her tattoo, just in case it has to be put in a place you'd be uncomfortable having someone who isn't intimate with you touching.

"And, hell, it's not like I'd ever let anyone else touch _my _Kumo there."

"N-Niisama." This from Kumo, who was twisting the hem of his shirt anxiously.

Kiri just scowled possessively and continued reading.

There was dead silence in the room but for the flip of pages as Kiri went through the reports, usually only looking at a face for a few seconds before dismissing it. Meanwhile, Dolk just stared at the ceiling and marveled at Miles' ability to stuff her foot in her mouth in all possible circumstances.

Finally, Kiri closed the folder with a decisive snap and held it back out towards Dolk. "He's not in here, not anywhere. You're not looking for someone you've dealt with before."

"Are you sure?" Dolk asked, though he knew what answer he'd get.

"Positive. I keep telling you, when I see him, I'll know beyond any doubt. If you've seen the face of the guy who does _that _to you, you don't forget it," Kiri snapped. "…even if you wish you could," he said a lot more quietly, under his breath.

Dolk sighed. "Well, thank you anyway. At least we can cross these people _off _the list now."

As he collected his coworkers and trailed out of the hospital, he wondered if there really was any hope of finding the rapist, or if Kontonkawa had been right and again the police would be unable to do anything until it was too late to stop whatever events were in play from coming to fruition.

---

When Fabula got in, Aura was sitting hunched over at the table at the center of the bare, darkened room, her eyes closed and her hands over her ears. Her expression was perfectly blank, but once Fabula had closed and locked the door, she sat up and turned towards her, those ghostly pale silver eyes glinting in the moonlight that spilled over the floor and the drab bed.

The specter of a smile crossed Aura's face. "…hey," she said, her voice a harsh rasp.

Love and worry and pain and want and dozens of other emotions tumbled through Fabula's chest, tangling and constricting painfully in her heart. "Hello," she replied.

"So?"

"Nothing new," Fabula replied with a sigh. "Good or bad."

"…and those kids?"

"So far, nothing with them yet either," Fabula answered her.

Aura rose from the chair, and something in the shadows on her face alerted Fabula to the fact that this had been a bad day; for a split second here and there, she looked just as she had four years ago, when Kaze had wrenched her out of Chaos and they'd all feared for a horrible moment that it had been too late—

Knowing what Aura needed of her, Fabula undid the buttons on her suit coat and let it slide off her shoulders to fall in a soft gray pile on the ground. She took off her shirt, cast it off absently, and looked sadly at Aura, letting her long hair spill over the tattoo that started at the center of her chest and trailed down between her breasts, mourning what had come before but willing to cling to what was left.

Skin to skin, they connected.

This was the way it was between them now. As much as the drugs, as much as the isolation and the cold lack of any color in the room, Aura used sex to keep the taint in her mind and heart at bay. The mind went blank if the body needed badly enough, which wasn't much but was all they needed to pretend that things had never changed, to deny that even lust sometimes ran cold, that under the pressure of Aura's wavering sanity, what had once been so vivid a love was starting to splinter.

Then again, as Aura healed, there was always hope for things to change.

Then again, who was to say that Fabula didn't deserve this? After all, it _was _her fault Aura was like this—

She'd slipped up; she'd slipped up badly. Aura had come to her rescue, had diverted the Kontonkawas' attention and gotten caught instead; and they'd gloried so in having a Knight in their grasp at last, and they'd tortured her and tortured her until her blood ran and her mind broke but Aura _still _hadn't told them anything—

And by the time they'd arrived there, they'd already begun to absorb her into Chaos, and she'd stood frozen while Kaze had shoved bodily into the battle and torn his sister away, and she _still_ hadn't been able to do anything even when the darkness and the dimensional rip had gathered to them, and had only been able to gather the strength to fight when _both _of them had come too close to dying—

So she let Aura drag her down to the bed and lay still and let Aura do whatever she pleased, and even as she came and arched up and almost cried out because it _hurt _even as it felt like she was flying, her mind and heart were distant and removed from herself, bound to the ground by chains of guilt.

Afterwards, they lay side by side and breathed and stared up at the skylight, and Aura reached out and took her hand, and when Fabula turned to look at her, she looked _almost _like she'd been before, and the kindness and regret in her smile broke her heart.

"I'm using you again," Aura said at length in that hoarse voice. "I'm sorry."

"No… it's well within your rights to use me however you choose," Fabula told her, pushing Aura's dark sweat-damp bangs back from her forehead.

They slept sporadically, and woke and took each other viciously, trying to answer with their bodies the desperate search for the way to recapture the warmth and love from four years ago. And while Fabula lay on her side and watched the wall and waited for sleep to return, she heard the sudden rustle of the sheets as Aura sat up.

She turned, saw that Aura was gripping the sheets hard and that she was staring up into nothing, her eyes wide and her pupils contracted to dots. "…what is it?"

"Get dressed," Aura said, her voice suddenly strong and sure. Fabula was surprised for a moment to hear Aura the Knight, but she sat up.

"What's going on?"

"—they're on the move," Aura replied cryptically. "The others will need you."

As Fabula sat and watched her, Aura shook her head and ran one hand through her hair, tightly gripping her bangs and holding them back. "Hurry, I said. I don't think you'll make it in time, but—"

"But…?" Fabula leaned in, and Aura slumped against her side, suddenly vulnerable again, her thick hair warm on Fabula's shoulder and the slight, delicate curve of her breast pressed against her arm.

"…they'll probably need you for damage control," Aura answered listlessly. "You—want to stop this, don't you—? To protect them—"

In a flash, Fabula understood what Aura meant, and before she could even try to think, she was across the room, struggling into her clothes.

---

"It'll be fine," Kumo said, leaning down to kiss Kiri's cheek as he tugged the laces of his shoe. "The store's down on the corner of the street; I'll be there and back in five minutes. Nothing's going to happen."

"But, Kumo—" That panic was rising in Kiri's throat again, and it had him trying to sit up although the pain dragged him back down with a groan.

"Even if there _were _still enough nurses on duty for us to find someone to ask, there might be a few strange questions if we said we're out of condoms and need more," Kumo told him with an awkward smile and a soft blush. "Besides—I want to get something for you, too. You need a little cheering up, Niisama!"

"That's what _you're _here for," Kiri said with a wry smile, although worry twisted it.

"Niisama, come on." Kumo waved a hand in the air as his blush spread. "It'll be okay." Before Kiri could protest, Kumo had leaned down to kiss him again, then was out the door and down the hall.

Kiri stared at the spot where Kumo had disappeared, at a loss as to what to say or do, that deep infinite wellspring of fear rising up to clutch his throat tight.

There was nothing he could do.

---

Providence, he concluded, was a funny thing.

Here he'd been prepared to search hours for viable prey, and he'd not been walking the streets for five minutes when it had come to him.

He wondered idly what naïve foolishness had decided the boy on his late-night shopping trip, then decided it mattered little as he closed the distance between himself and the child. The boy was wearing closely clinging white and green, and he had a plastic bag from that corner mart draped over his right arm at the elbow. He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings at all, intent on the distant light of the hospital, smiling and apparently humming some kind of tune beneath his breath.

He reached out and pulled, and the boy's eyes went wide as he lurched towards the crevasse between two buildings, pulling the child after him.

_"—!" _With a wordless cry of terror, the boy whirled, and then there was sharp pain through his wrist as those slender fingers and their well-shaped nails dug between his tendons, forcing him to let go with a snarled curse. Jumping away warily, the boy raised his hands before him defensively, cautiously tracing him with those wide, fearful eyes.

"You'll pay for this, _brat," _he growled, and lunged. The boy stumbled backwards, blocked his first and second strike, and began to whisper something in alternated harsh and lyrical syllables, an incantation the man recognized. It was the activation key leading into a Knight's distress call; if the boy completed it, all he had to do was touch his tattoo and every Knight within a mile and a half would be all over this place. By the time the man had realized this, the boy was at the end of the call, and was reaching towards his own body when the man pounced, slamming him hard into the wall and grabbing his right wrist. There was the crunch of breaking bone and a wail from the boy as he pulled his arm in, and in the emptiness of the street, the man took savage hold of his opportunity.

It was fast, and it was brutal. It took little effort to tear the boy's clothing, and less to pin him back with his own superior body weight and strength, one hand on his left wrist and the other over his mouth to stifle what would've been screams of pain and terror. No virgin, this one, but still young and fragile and probably never touched but out of love.

It ended quickly, and they sank to the cold sidewalk, the boy's eyes glassy with tears as he trembled and whimpered weakly out of fear.

He smirked.

Just like the last Knight he'd gone after, the boy pushed himself back and tried to attack, but he knew better than to relax his guard, and caught the boy's entire left arm and twisted it behind his back. There was a sick crack and a tear of tendon and bone, and the boy let out a delicious shriek as his shoulder was wrenched out of its socket; he laughed scornfully and pushed the boy down to the ground, dragging his pants down past his hips and taking him even more viciously than before, glorying in the cries of pain that met each rough, deep thrust.

All the while, as he panted and laughed and rocked his hips in and out, the boy's voice shaped a faint tremolo of words he couldn't fully hear or understand. A prayer, perhaps. When _would _these people ever learn that there was no one who would come to save them?

He didn't notice until it was too late that the boy had been inching his maimed right arm across the ground. As it was, he wasn't able to reach in time to stop those trembling fingers from tucking between the boy's legs and pressing to the black mark hidden up against the inside of his thigh.

The Knight's mark glowed bright white, and then there was a pillar of light that erupted around his body, streaming high and full into the air. As if in mockery of his own underestimation of the boy's inner strength, dark pleasure seared through him and orgasm took him in his weakness, exploding and sending him rushing hard and fast deep into his victorious victim.

Seething, he gripped the back of the boy's neck hard and squeezed vindictively, making him squeal as he thrust one last vicious time, then pulled back and straightened up, glaring coldly at the shivering boy lying in the ruined tatters of his clothes and the splatters of his blood, a thick trail of the man's semen across his thigh, seeping with more blood down the contours of his bare lily-white ass.

"Disgusting," he proclaimed, and drove his heel into the boy's tearstained face until he felt bone give and heard one last wail from the pathetic child. Then, knowing he had no more time, he fled back into the abyssal darkness of Lucretia's midnight.

Secrets never slept.

The one that had lain dormant in his body for four years was going to change everything.

---

The desk clerk working the graveyard shift at the hospital froze mid-yawn when she saw him.

Kiri Madoushi's baby brother Kumo had left some ten minutes ago to go pick some things up at the store, since there'd been nobody on hand who could go in his place, but—

But how could this have _happened _just _outside, _and in so short a time—?

As Kumo pushed feebly at the door, his fingers left streaks of blood on the glass, and when he had to put his shoulder into it to get it open, she could see his sob for breath as he strained for purchase. When finally he staggered into the lobby, he swayed unsteadily, tried to take a step, and then looked up and his eyes were suddenly on her as he coughed, shaking with shame and pain and _crying—_

"Please…" he managed, and tried to take another step, and then he collapsed.

The clerk ran out to him, and stared down as he lay bleeding onto the floor, unconscious, then knelt at his side, feeling at his throat for his pulse.

There was none.

Levering Kumo's dead weight up into her arms, she turned on her knees towards the inside of the hospital, and screamed for all she was worth. _"Someone—!"_

---

And in a town far away, a young man and a young woman in their mid-teens stood next to a boarding subway train.

"Are you really sure you'll be alright with—going back there, after all this?" the boy asked hesitantly.

The girl just smiled at him and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Well, hey, I can't turn down an assignment like this. You know how it is. An order's an order. Besides… if we spend all our time running away, then we'll never be able to let it go."

"Then—then shouldn't I at least go with—?" he asked, but she was shaking her head.

"You're not a Knight. Besides, you've got school! You're gonna be a doctor so you can help people, right? So you've gotta study, and keep those grades up so you can get into a good college! Don't waste all that time you spent busting your butt to get into that high school. Besides—you know Mom and Dad'll fall apart without you."

"Yeah…" He smiled awkwardly at her. "Just—even though Knights get their private school, don't _completely _blow off studying while you're there."

She laughed, and hugged him.

_"Last call boarding the 11:15 train to Lucretia," _the voice on the overhead speakers said. _"All passengers taking the 11:15 to Lucretia, board now."_

"Well, I guess it's time to go," she said, letting go of him and picking up her bags.

As she disappeared into the train with a wave, he bit his lip and looked down at his shoes.

"Be…" he said softly, shaking his head. "Be careful, Oneechan."

:TBC:


	7. Stairway

Midnight

See disclaimer in the Prologue

Kiri was lying on his back counting cracks in the ceiling, trying to still his jagged pulse and stifling half-murmured prayers, when out of nowhere his arm started to _burn. _Shocked, he stared down at himself, then struggled into a sitting position and pushed his blankets to his waist: His Knight's mark was glowing white-hot, and with its unfaltering light, sharp terror swept through his blood.

_The distress call—_ The thought didn't get any further, because crippling pain ripped up his breastbone, curling around his heart and squeezing hard. Kiri gasped, clutched at his chest, and buckled, curling up tightly as first one, then two, then _all _of the monitors that were attached to him via the doctors' wires began to scream shrilly.

Fighting to stay conscious, Kiri sat up again, tore free of his flimsy restraints, and put his legs over the side of the bed. Outside his room, doctors were running back and forth. Panting shallowly, he watched them dizzily, then felt his heart literally stop when he saw the group of them rushing the gurney past the window.

He didn't see much: just a flash of torn green, and a pale, bloody hand on the sheets. But he knew instantly.

As a second wave of disabling agony slashed through his chest, Kiri grabbed for the spell card sitting on the sparse bedside table, his desperate fingers clutching twice on nothing before he was able to pull it towards him.

_"An nall nithrac…" _he barely managed to choke, then held it to his forehead, closing his eyes and _screaming _with every ounce of will in his body.

The next moment, a third convulsive clutch gripped him, carrying him over the edge of the bed to sprawl on the cold floor, unmoving.

---

Fabula was only a few blocks away when the immense pillar of light shot into the sky and the Knight's mark on her chest started to burn. Swearing bitterly, she put on speed, holding out both hands at her sides to summon her armament, a bright blur of blue and silver down the blackness of Lucretia's night.

When she collided with him, she sensed the taint running through his body and blood and leaped back, raising one hand into the air and calling out a string of harsh commands that sent streaks of light from around her body to his.

He flung out both arms to deflect the blows, but some of them hit, and the illumination was enough for Fabula to realize what Chaos had been doing. Gritting her teeth, she held out one chakram at her adversary, her eyes hard with hate.

"This is where it ends," she called decisively. "Release him now, or suffer the consequences!"

"…Or what?" he said, smiling darkly, clearly trying to taunt her with that familiar voice. "You wouldn't possibly _attack, _when you would only be hurting a colleague?"

"Tch." She narrowed her eyes and held her hand out, gathering power. "You might be surprised. After all… either way, he'll be well rid of you, won't he?"

"The justifications of your pathetic order never cease to fascinate me," he replied snidely, and raised both arms before him, turning his palms to the sky as power surged around him.

Fabula crooked her fingers; the light from the streetlamps hazed, flickered, and began to dance around her. When he gestured broadly to send his shadowed power at her, she only stared at him with scorn. The lights around her smote the tendrils down instantly.

Almost before she could see him do it, he rushed her—as it was, she was just able to sink back into a defensive stance in order to parry his heavy strike. She grabbed hold of his wrist, spun him around so that he was standing against her back, and jerked, sending him spinning over her hip to catch himself awkwardly. She shifted her weight to her toes, then dashed forward quickly, focusing her power for a kick that didn't quite graze his cheek—a warning shot, charged with more than enough power to let him know she was serious. He staggered from the blowback, then lashed out with an open-palm strike. Fabula leaned out of the way, but the rush of jagged air around his hand opened a wide cut down her cheekbone that began to bleed a few seconds later. Not giving him time to recover, she swept low and kicked his legs out from under him, sending him sprawling with a grunt.

"There's only so much you can do with a body that's not yours," she said softly, scathingly. "Actions that would be reflex to a man such as him are things you have to struggle and overcompensate for. Face it. You can't win against me." Blood was sliding hot and sticky from the side of her face down her throat and into the shoulder of her dress, dripping over her clavicle onto her Knight's mark and between her breasts. For now she ignored it, but it would be an annoying mess to clean later.

"…hmph." He got back to his feet slowly, but though she bent down into a tense stance in preparation for more battle, he ran the other way, attempting to disappear into the darkness of the side streets.

"You're not getting away from me!"

---

Dolk stood in the cold with a grim expression and a tight grip on his briefcase, waiting for the train to arrive. Usually, he liked the fact that he lived on the outskirts of Lucretia: It meant that while it took longer to get to work, he was able to see the rosy tinges of daylight on the horizon, an alien sight to the inner city. Ever since the time of the great dimensional rip that had been the culmination of That Incident, dawn had never fully risen on Lucretia, after all, and it bothered Dolk on a fundamental level. It was, he thought privately sometimes, like time had almost frozen over the city for all this time, and it was _waiting _for something to happen to move it forward again.

But now, his distance from the hub of the city was a nuisance. He'd been rudely awakened by Kiri's desperate cry only ten minutes or so ago, and the bullet train would get him into town in another twenty or less, but there was no way for him to know exactly what had transpired and it was really worrying. Dolk continually tried to reestablish his telepathic connection with Kiri, but either the force of the Mystarian's call had used up all his ofuda's power, or something was happening in the hospital that kept Kiri from replying. Either way, he had to get there, and he had to get there yesterday. He hadn't been able to save Kiri from being attacked, but he had given his word that he would come if he was needed and didn't want to be too late.

Finally, there was a roar of wind, and the redeye pulled into the station with a hiss of steam as the brakes locked. Dolk adjusted his grip on his briefcase, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and stepped on when the doors slid open, electing to stand in the aisle rather than sit.

The train was relatively empty, what with it being the middle of the night. A few bored-looking businessmen were sitting in this car and the next, and a tall girl in a deep brown trenchcoat, driving gloves, and a bucket hat stood further down the aisle from him with her back to him. Still, if Dolk sat, he'd have all that more space to focus on fidgeting and worrying. Standing, he'd need to expend energy to brace himself against the train's movement.

There was a hiss as the doors closed, then that particular mechanical surge and hum as the power cells fixed throughout the train's frame charged and went off, sending them rocketing forward.

_What, _Dolk wondered to himself as the train roared down the track, _could possibly have made Madoushi scream like that? He said to me himself that even when he was attacked, he never cried out. But just now, he called me with so much force it took a few minutes for me to be able to hear myself think again. So what could have happened? Or don't I even want to know the answer to that?_

There were a few more moments of silence, and then there was an earsplitting sound of glass shattering, and many of the train's windows blasted inwards, crashing in a musical cascade into the aisle. Most of the passengers ducked with fearful or protesting cries, and Dolk stared incredulously as a figure in a long black coat with its hood pulled up seemed to fall through one of the windows into the aisle.

Barely half a breath later, there was a furious exclamation, the words lost in the roar of the wind, and Fabula swung in through one of the windows, sliding to a standstill on the broken glass that littered the car. Her face was cut, and the blood from the injury was soaking her side; her hands were also bleeding from where she'd grabbed the edges of glass to get herself inside, but she didn't seem to notice any of that. She was wearing what Dolk had always thought of as the Knight look, her expression hard and honed and decisive, and there was nothing short of sheer rage in her eyes.

"I told you there'd be no escaping me!" she yelled at the hooded man, and all hell broke loose.

There was a surge of power back and forth between the two of them, strong enough to shatter all the remaining glass in the compartment, more than enough to tell Dolk that not only was Fabula dead serious, but that she'd kill this man if she got half the chance. And that was more than enough to tell Dolk who he was looking at.

Drawing in a deep breath, he snapped his briefcase open and whipped out a stack of ofuda, slamming the briefcase shut and to the ground, setting one foot over it for good measure. Pulling the top card off the stack, he palmed the others in a circle, first lighting the inscription on the one he'd chosen, then positioning his hands in the jutsu, softly chanting the sutra so that he would be able to attack whenever Fabula—or her opponent—gave him the opportunity to do so.

Then the girl who'd been standing in front of him whipped off her coat, both it and her hat blown outside by the force of the wind. Dolk saw a flash of black at her wrist just as light exploded around her, taking the shape of bow and arrow that she aimed at the hooded man, loosing one ethereal shot, then several more. He danced back to avoid the rain of power, and then faded back through the window just as the train began to slow, pulling towards the station.

"…" Dolk held out his hand, and the deck of ofuda he'd been arming flew obediently back into it. Fabula shook her head, cursed softly, and then lightly flipped her injured hands at her sides as if starting to feel the sting of the cuts only now.

"Smarmy son of a bitch," the girl observed, glaring in the direction of the window where the man had disappeared as she let the bow of light in her hands fizzle out. "Who does he think he is, running away from a good fight like that? Coward."

So saying, she smoothed back her long, windblown pink hair, then turned towards Dolk and Fabula with a surprised-looking smile.

"Well, this sure is some reunion. I was hoping for something a little less _violent, _but… it's good to see you guys again, after so long."

---

The three of them had quite the reception when they reached the hospital—other police and security guards, most prominently Miles and Gaeus, were all over the waiting room, with several squad cars sitting in the lot with their lights still flashing. Hospital staff were running back and forth frantically, and one particularly white-faced clerk was sitting down and talking to a few officers Dolk didn't immediately recognize while they took notes.

"Well, shit," Dolk murmured. There was little doubt as to what could have happened here.

"Hey, you guys—better late than never," Miles said, noticing them and waving them over. "Dolk, you need to move further in, seriously—you probably got word before any of us because you left that card with Madoushi, but you're just getting here now. That's pathetic. I'd better brief you with the basics now before you start getting too confused by hysterical workers."

"May as well get it over with," Dolk sighed. "So?"

"Our favorite bastard was lurking around down here, and happened to run into Kumo while he was coming back from a late-night shopping trip. There was an altercation—and, yes, another assault—but Kumo was able to get off the distress call. It lit up the entire block; there was no way you could miss it. Our perp took off pretty quick, so he slipped our nets, but we've got the perimeter on lockdown while Kumo's in surgery. They fought, so his injuries are pretty nasty—even with reconstructive surgery, his face will likely be scarred. Interestingly enough, Madoushi went into cardiac arrest shortly after Kumo was taken in. The former's in recovery right now, and the latter's still being worked on. Now what the hell happened to _you?" _Miles asked Fabula, crossing her arms. "Looks like you got in an argument with some sharp objects."

"Broken glass, actually," Fabula remarked conversationally. "I had the good fortune of encountering our runaway on my way to respond to the distress call. I obviously tried to get hold of him, and our fight took us onto the redeye train that these two happened to be on. He escaped, but I _do _have some important information for you regarding who and _what _we're dealing with here."

"Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it can wait until we get you stitched up," Miles said shrewdly. "You're gonna faint if you lose too much blood."

Fabula glanced down at her hands as if she'd had to be reminded that she had any injuries at all. "If you insist. Still, as soon as I'm done, I need to talk to you all. If you'll excuse me? Dolk, Ai… I'm fairly sure you can handle the rest." With that, she was off and walking towards the inside of the hospital, her long silver hair trailing after her and splatters of blood pooling on the tile floor in her wake.

Miles shook her head after the Knight, wearing an expression of utter amazement. "…A ballsier woman I've never laid eyes on. Anyway, who have we got…" Turning to see Dolk's young companion for the first time, Miles fell silent and stared, her mouth hanging open.

"Uh… yeah. Long time no see—really, _really_ long time no see," Ai said with a grin.

"If it's any consolation, I hardly recognized her at first either," Dolk put in helpfully, ruffling the girl's hair affectionately. "She's gotten so big in four years."

Lucretia hadn't seen hide or hair of Ai Hayakawa and her family since the conclusion of That Incident—they'd prudently skipped town as soon as their part in the affair was over. The girl who'd left the city had been small for her twelve years, with carefully arranged and often unusual hairstyles and a skeptic's air that often made her seem older than she was. Now, Ai was wearing her hair long and loose, and it fell thick and straight past her waist, as luridly pink as ever, and she had a grin on that said she was still adrenaline-rushing from the near battle on the train. She'd put on at least a foot and a half, and would probably top Lisa by an inch or two, despite the difference in their ages.

And another thing—Ai and her twin brother Yu had been entirely helpless during That Incident, caught in the gears of Chaos' machinations as they were. Judging by her actions on the train, that wasn't the case anymore.

And judging by her reappearance now of all times, there was little doubt as to how that was so.

"What are you _doing_ out here?" Miles demanded, finding her tongue at last. "If you were on the train, you should know damn well that the Kontonkawas are getting active again…"

Ai pulled off her right glove and displayed her wrist to both police officers, her smile losing its giddiness and going hard, confident. "I was _assigned_ here," she told them. "And you don't turn down orders. Besides, it's way past time to run away and hide. I made sure I learned how to defend myself properly while I was away. My partner's headed here too, but—she's tied up in Shinjuku, and probably won't make it for a good few more days."

Dolk nodded at Ai's explanation, still staring at the black Knight's mark on her fair skin soberly. It was only right that this girl, who owed so much to the Knights of the Round, had joined their order to stand up and defend those who were now as she'd been then.

"What about Yu?" he asked at last. "Did he become a Knight too, or…?"

Ai shook her head, shrugging. "Nah. Baby brother's staying in school like a good kid—he's gonna study medicine when he graduates, be a genius doctor and save lives in other ways. He's got power, too—he's just using it in a way he's better suited to. It's kinda just as well… he can't throw a punch worth beans, and I've only got a vague idea how to put on an Ace bandage."

"Are you sure you want to turn yourself into a target like this, though…? After all…" Miles let the sentence hang, still looking at Ai dubiously.

"Four years ago, Yu and I didn't know what we were or even how to use the powers we had," Ai said simply. "Now we do. And we've chosen what we're going to do with them. We're beyond Chaos now—which I'm sure must _really_ burn Kontonkawa's slimy ass." She grinned dangerously. "Don't worry so much, okay?"

Miles jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "In case Dolk and Fabula didn't enlighten you, we've got a Knight your age back in there," she said seriously. "The Kontonkawas' new lackey got hold of him. He's been brutalized, and we're not sure if the doctors here can fix it. Another Knight, one older than you, barely survived a similar attack. This guy's no lightweight. You sure you're up to that?"

Ai shrugged. "For what it's worth, I've got a year and a half's worth of hard combat experience. I've fought through the kinds of things only other Knights can imagine. _I'm_ no lightweight, either."

There was a brief moment of silence in which Miles was probably realizing, as Dolk had, that in her years away Ai had grown up quickly. She wasn't the same girl anymore, and although her confident attitude was still brazen, it wore on her a lot more easily, as though she'd earned the right to act tough.

Dolk rested a hand on her shoulder, patted. Although his voice was sad, it was also proud as he told her, "Whatever the case, it's good to have you aboard."

There was another brief silence as Miles assumed a thoughtful expression and Ai shoved Dolk's hand away with a good-naturedly embarrassed grin. Police lights still flashed outside, and the clamor of officers talking to the hospital staff buzzed in the background, but Dolk paid little attention to it.

If the events from That Incident were starting to come full circle, then—it was probably only just that Ai should be here too, and work to close what had been opened because of her existence. No matter how young she still was, it felt fundamentally right to Dolk both as a policeman and as an ordinary man who'd also been involved.

Besides, if Ai had learned to fully control her powers, it would be too massive a help to turn down when dealing with the Kontonkawas and the evil they represented.

The warm silence was broken as the doors slid open hard and footsteps rang discordantly on the tile floors. Dolk turned, wondering what in the world had happened _now, _to see that it was Lisa who'd just burst in—Lisa with her hair down, her coat half-buttoned, her son Yuki asleep in one arm and her half-awake daughter Kasumi trailing at the end of the other. She was pale and had a frantic look in her eyes, and was clearly falling apart at the seams—_Lisa, _who always tried her best to shield negative emotions with a smile, no matter how fake or transparent it came out. Something was definitely wrong.

Before Dolk could ask aloud, Lisa crossed the room to him, Miles, and Ai.

"Kaze is gone," she burst out, panting—she'd apparently run straight here as fast as she'd been able to with Kasumi on the ground. "I woke up a little while ago with all the commotion and he wasn't in bed—looked around the house and he wasn't there—the door was open—if he's having another of his bad episodes—if the man we've been chasing is at large—"

Miles swore vibrantly, making Kasumi blink up at her with confusion. "We can't know if the son of a bitch was screwing around before he attacked Kumo… and this would be just the _perfect _time for a double attack, with all our people sitting here on the hospital…"

Lisa let out a sound that was half gasp and half sob; Dolk glared at Miles for panicking her further.

"I'm sure Kaze is fine, Lisa," he told her soothingly. "He knows how to take care of himself better than most, and since our perp tangled with Fabula, he's probably just been putting as much distance between himself and here as he can."

_"Mooooooom, _what's 'sum-of-a-bich' mean?" Kasumi asked, yanking Lisa's sleeve. Not really paying attention, she patted her daughter's head and told her to hush.

"This sure is a mess and a half, though," Miles remarked with a sigh. "We can't spare the people to search for Kaze right now, and whether he's been attacked or he's seen something suspicious or he's just spacing out, we can't just leave him around to fend for himself. And we can't send just one person out to look for him," she added, cutting Ai off—apparently she'd been ready to volunteer. "Kumo's proof enough that it's just not safe to anybody associated with the Knights to be alone at night."

Ai made a face and crossed her arms, but nodded, acknowledging the sense in the statement.

At that moment, Fabula rejoined them, sporting a butterfly bandage on her cheek and freshly wrapped hands. She looked none the worse for wear, and had cleaned up the blood on her chest, though it still stained the side of her dress.

"Lisa—you're here, and you've brought the children? That's good—it's not safe for you to be at home right now. And it's best that you're here to listen to what I have to say. Everyone, let's move out of the way of the police working here… we need to wait in Kiri's room until he wakes up for this. In the meantime, let's get the kids settled in a room of their own… Kasumi looks about ready to drop, poor thing. We can't have distractions, and they don't need to worry about this. I know who it is we're fighting."

:TBC:


End file.
